e/T  Child  s 


Marj^  Aronetta  Wilbur 


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A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 


A  Child's  Religion 

By 

Mary  Aronetta  Wilbur 

AUTHOR  OF 

Every- Day  Business  for  Women 


Boston  and  New  York 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company 

1917  ^ 


W  r 


COPYRIGHT,   I917,   BY  MARY  ARONETTA  WILBUR 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Published  March  iqij 


TO 

THE    BLESSED    MEMORY 
OF    MY    DEAR    MOTHER 

fttars  lEunfce  <top9  WiiVbuv 

WHO    FROM    YOUTH    TO    OLD   AGE 

TAUGHT    LITTLE    CHILDREN 

THE    LOVE    OF 

GOD 


359424 


L'ENVOI 

Go^  little  book;  God  speed  thee  on  thy  way^  "i 
And  bear  thy  message  straight  to  loyal  hearts  y 
Who^  seeing  all  to-morrow  in  to-day y 
Are  striving  in  the  strength  His  grace  im- 
parts 
To  guide  God's  little  pilgrims^  lest  they  stray. 


FOREWORD 

THESE  brief  papers  are  the  outgrowth 
of  many  years  of  observation  and  expe- 
rience in  the  teaching  and  religious  training 
of  children.  The  conclusions  have  been 
drawn  from  cases  of  neglect  as  well  as  from 
those  of  nurture;  for  we  are  admonished  by 
the  one  sort,  and  advised  by  the  other. 

Thomas  K.  Beecher  once  declared  to  a 
company  of  Sunday-School  teachers :  "  You 
cannot  give  your  children  religion;  that  is 
not  your  province.  Your  work  is  to  keep  the 
child  in  position  before  God."  A  vastly  im- 
portant and  tender  work  that  is ;  and  these 
papers  have  been  written  from  time  to  time, 
as  occasion  demanded,  to  consider  certain 
aspects  of  that  work.  Many  of  them  have 
appeared  in  The  Churchman^  and  are  here  re- 
printed by  the  courtesy  of  that  paper.  In 
their  collected  form  it  is  hoped  that  they  may 
have  a  wider  usefulness  than  the  single  ar- 
ticles could  have. 


X  FOREWORD 

May  every  teacher  of  children  find  here 
some  of  the  blessing  that  the  preparation  of 
these  papers  has  brought  to  the  writer. 

Washington,  D.C,  1917 


CONTENTS 


I.  A  CHILD  S  RELIGION   . 

II.  THE  CHILD  AND  THE  CHURCH 

III.  CHILDREN  AND  MISSIONS      , 

IV.  THE  SONG  AND  THE  CHILD 
V.  THE  CHILD  AND  HIS  BOOK 

VI.  ON  TELLING  BIBLE  STORIES 

VII.  A  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  TEACHER* S  BIOGRAPHY 

VIII.  THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER 

IX.  THE  OLD  BIBLE  AND  THE  NEW  CHILD 


•          1 

I 

•          t 

.        lO 

•          * 

.       26 

•          t 

►     39 

• 

55 

BIOGRAP 

HY 

..    67 
•     79 

• 

• 

•     93 

CHILD 

• 

.   114 

A  Child's  Religion 


A   CHILD*  S   RELIGION 

A  Study  from  Life 

IT  is  a  vital  question  with  Christian  par- 
ents at  what  age  a  child's  religious  train- 
ing should  begin.  Some  take  psychological 
alarm  at  the  idea  of  expecting  a  child  to 
appreciate  anything  as  mysterious  and  dif- 
ficult as  religion :  forgetting  that  childhood 
loves  mystery.  Some  postpone  the  teaching, 
because  they  are  really  at  a  loss  how  to  im- 
part what  they  themselves  earnestly  believe, 
and  so  let  the  child's  instruction  wait  until  a 
Sunday-School  teacher  can  give  it  to  him. 
It  is  with  the  desire  to  throw  some  light  upon 
both  these  aspects  of  the  case  that  I  have  de- 
tailed the  experiences  following.  The  child 
described  was  not  abnormal  or  precocious  in 
any  way,  and  the  results  achieved,  and  the 


2  A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

means  by  which  they  were  obtained,  were  not 
at  all  unusual.  The  mother  gave  no  thought  to 
such  problems  as  heredity  and  environment, 
but  her  strong  sense  told  her  that  if  a  child 
is  to  be  religious,  it  must  be  taught  the  faitR ; 
and  that  the  religious  influence  upon  char- 
acter, exerted  by  the  environment  during 
the  tender,  formative  years,  should  be  abun- 
dantly supplied  by  home  instruction  and 
formal  services.     , 

This  is  the  story  of  what  that  child  was 
taught,  and  the  child's  impressions  and  re- 
sultant education. 

According  to  my  mother's  account,  it  was 
her  custom  to  tell  me  Bible  stories  in  those 
early  morning  hours  when  a  two-year-old 
awakes,  and  the  nurse  has  not  yet  arrived; 
and  so  fond  of  them  did  I  become  that, 
when  sleepiness  forced  her  to  stop,  I  would 
pull  at  her  eyelids  and  demand,  "More 
Moses,  more  Joseph." 

Next  I  seem  to  have  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Jonah,  and  when  I  tumbled  from 
my  hobby-horse  and  my  father  asked  the 


A  CHILD'S  RELIGION  3 

reason  for  the  racket,  he  was  promptly  in- 
formed that  "Jonah  fell  overboard."  I  do 
not  know  when  I  was  first  taught,  "Now  I 
lay  me  down  to  sleep,"  but  so  strongly  was 
it  impressed  upon  my  consciousness  that  it 
was  the  correct  prayer,  that  I  was  nearly 
grown  before  I  dared  to  omit  it,  feeling  that 
my  prayers  would  be  incomplete  without  it. 

I  was  taken  to  church  at  the  tender  age 
of  four,  and  expected  to  keep  quiet  during 
a  forty-minute  sermon,  and  a  long  prayer 
of  fifteen  minutes,  the  old-fashioned  Presby- 
terian sort.  It  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that 
I  did  not  always  succeed,  and  one  day  was 
ignominiously  taken  out  of  church  during 
service,  for  bad  behavior,  taken  home  and 
put  to  bed  by  my  mother,  and  later  whipped 
by  my  father.  The  only  impression  that  these 
early  experiences  made  on  my  mind  was, 
that  church  was  the  proper  place  to  go  on 
Sunday  morning,  and  that  I  must  behave 
myself  there. 

My  notion  of  heaven  became  definite  in 
my  sixth  year,  when  my  father  died.  I  re- 
membered his  funeral  distinctly  and  espe- 


4  A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

cially  the  Masonic  rite.  Thereafter  heaven 
was  where  my  beloved  father  had  gone ;  and 
I  awoke  to  the  consciousness  that  I  was  the 
head  of  the  little  band  of  sisters,  and  must 
teach  them  what  my  father  had  taught  me 
—  to  scorn  a  lie,  and  to  fear  nothing. 

I  think  the  stories  of  the  Christ  Child  and 
the  Saviour  were  taught  me  before  I  could 
remember.  I  seem  to  have  had  a  protective 
and  proprietary  feeling  for  the  Baby  Jesus, 
which  changed  with  my  growth;  until  it 
was  Christ,  the  Friend  and  Elder  Brother, 
the  Helper  who  understood  what  I  needed 
and  wanted,  that  claimed  my  love  and 
loyalty. 

My  next  recollection  dates  from  my 
eighth  year.  I  was  with  my  grandmother 
at  Clifton  Springs;  one  Sunday  morning  she 
was  unable  to  attend  chapel  services,  so  my 
younger  sister  and  I  went  alone.  It  was  a 
communion  service,  and  I  think  the  first 
that  I  had  ever  seen;  and  when  the  invita- 
tion was  given  to  "all  who  love  the  Lord 
Jesus  in  sincerity  and  truth,"  I  promptly 
went  forward,  undeterred  by  the  fact  that  I 


A  CHILD'S  RELIGION  5 

was  the  only  child  kneeling  at  the  altar  rail. 
The  minister  passed  me  by  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  Elements;  an  omission  which  hurt 
me,  and  which  I  could  not  comprehend,  be- 
cause I  was  sure  that  the  invitation  had  in- 
cluded me  —  for  did  not  I  love  the  Lord 
Jesus?  My  grandmother  explained  it  later, 
and  thereafter  I  looked  forward  to  the  day 
when  I  should  be  a  church  member. 

On  my  eighth  birthday  I  was  given  a 
Bible,  and  I  promised  my  mother  to  read 
ten  verses  every  morning;  a  promise  I  scru- 
pulously kept,  reading  ten  verses,  and  no 
more,  straight  through  from  Genesis  to  Rev- 
elation, not  omitting  the  twelve  genealogical 
chapters  of  First  Chronicles. 

Somewhere  about  this  time  I  remember 
believing  absolutely  in  the  power  of  prayer, 
and  testing  it  whenever  I  lost  anything,  by 
asking  that  I  might  find  the  article;  and  I 
have  a  distinct  recollection  of  many  answers. 
When  I  read  of  the  promise,  "If  ye  have 
faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  shall  say 
unto  this  mountain,  Remove  hence  to  yon- 
der place,  and  it  shall  remove  (Matt.  17:20), 


6  A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

I  was  much  impressed,  and  after  much  de- 
liberation determined  to  try  it,  but  was 
deterred  by  the  fact  that  there  was  n't  a 
mountain  within  three  hundred  miles  of  our 
house ;  so  I  decided  to  postpone  the  trial 
until  I  could  watch  the  effect  of  my  com- 
mand. 

At  night  my  mother  used  to  read  to  me 
the  stories  of  the  Exodus  and  the  Wilder- 
ness, and  the  old  Bible  hero-tales,  from  a 
Bible  illustrated  by  Dore  and  other  famous 
artists;  and  these  heroes  were  as  real  to  me 
as  the  men  of  the  Revolution  were  after- 
wards; and  I  caught  their  message,  that 
God  punished  the  wicked  and  rewarded  the 
good,  and  that  those  who  trusted  Him  were 
not  left  desolate. 

Our  usual  Sunday  programme  was  to  go 
to  church  in  the  morning.  Then  after  din- 
ner we  were  required  to  study  our  Sunday- 
School  lesson,  and  to  learn  a  verse  to  recite 
at  prayers  on  Sunday  night ;  sometimes  we 
older  ones  were  assigned  a  topic  for  our 
verses  and  had  to  consult  the  concordance 
to  find  them.  ' 


A  CHILD'S  RELIGION  7 

Sometimes,  if  the  time  was  very  long,  as 
it  was  in  summer  when  Sunday-School  be- 
gan at  five  o'clock,  we  were  asked  to  learn  a 
hymn ;  memorizing  was  easy  work,  and  we 
soon  acquired  a  large  stock  of  hymns. 

I  was  duly  impressed  by  the  fact  that  my 
grandfather's  favorite  psalm  had  been  the 
ninetieth,  and  that  my  father's  favorite  chap- 
ter had  been  the  twenty-second  of  Revela- 
tion I  admired  both  of  these  ancestors,  so, 
of  course,  it  troubled  me  that  I  had  no 
favorite  portion  of  Scripture.  After  much 
thought  I  selected  the  twenty-fifth  of  Mat- 
thew for  my  chapter,  as  the  picturesqueness 
of  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  the  ten  virgins 
and  the  story  of  the  talents  appealed  to  me; 
that  seemed  a  good  chapter  because  it  had 
so  much  in  it,  and  I  was  well  satisfied  with 
my  selection. 

The  promises  of  the  Bible,  made  to  the 
old  Hebrews  or  specific  people,  I  applied 
to  myself,  and  expected  their  fulfillment; 
being  just  as  sure  that  I  was  one  of  the 
elect  as  I  was  that  I  came  from  Pilgrim 
stock.   Hell  never  frightened  me;  that  was 


8  A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

a  place  where  somebody  I  did  n't  know  was 
going ;  I  was  booked  for  heaven. 

There  must  have  been  much  direct  teach- 
ing of  holy  things  by  my  mother  and  by 
the  Sunday-School  teachers,  who  were  all 
women  of  beautiful  character,  but  that  I 
do  not  remember  distinctly.  I  do  remember, 
however,  that  from  the  age  of  twelve  I  was 
trying  to  "  be  good  "  as  I  understood  it,  and 
I  took  my  first  communion  on  my  four- 
teenth birthday.  Thereafter  I  left  child- 
hood, with  its  curious  misinterpretations, 
behind,  and  the  growth  in  grace  was  accom- 
panied by  a  growth  in  knowledge  as  well. 

It  was  inevitable  that  I  should  pass  through 
a  period  of  doubt  when  I  left  college,  for 
most  young  people  do,  but  through  it  all  I 
never  doubted  that  God  is  and  God  loves. 
That  was  my  creed  rock  when  everything 
else  was  storm-driven,  and  that  was  so  in- 
grained into  my  consciousness  by  my  early 
training  that  I  could  no  more  doubt  it  than 
I  could  doubt  my  own  existence.  And 
when  in  later  life  the  second  storm  came, 
aroused  by  a  study  of  the  extreme  higher 


A  CHILD'S  RELIGION  9 

criticism,  and  in  that  first  shock  it  seemed 
that  everything  I  had  ever  known  or  be- 
lieved was  being  swept  away  from  me;  this 
faith  stayed,  and,  helped  by  the  unshaken 
faith  of  my  mother,  I  weathered  that  storm 
also,  and  came  into  the  quiet  haven  of  re- 
adjusted views  and  clearer  faith. 


F 


II 

THE  CHILD  AND  THE  CHURCH 

OUR  times  in  the  New  Testament  we 
have  a  record  of  Christ  dealing  with 
children.  First  when  He  took  a  little  child, 
and  setting  him  in  the  midst,  taught  from 
the  living  text  a  lesson  in  humility  to  the 
apostles,  who  were  disputing  such  a  the- 
ological abstraction  as  rank  in  heaven ;  de- 
claring that  the  little  child  was  his  personal 
representative,  for  "  whosoever  shall  receive 
one  such  little  child  in  my  name,  receiveth 
me."  And  again,  when  He  took  the  chil- 
dren in  his  arms,  and  bade  them  "suffer 
the  little  children  to  come  to  me,"  and 
blocked  the  way  with  no  theological  dogma, 
as  his  Church  has  sometimes  mistakenly 
done.  At  the  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem 
the  prelude  of  the  world's  greatest  week,  no 
blare  of  trumpets  heralded  his  approach  to 
the  royal  city,  but  children's  voices  acclaimed 
the  children's  Friend  as  King.  And  after  the 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH        ii 

Resurrection,  when  repentant  St.  Peter  was 
protesting  his  love,  he  was  charged  to  show 
it  by  obeying  the  injunction,  "Feed  my 
lambs/' 

Strange  is  it  indeed,  in  the  light  of  these 
records,  to  read  the  story  of  the  succeeding 
ages,  and  see  how  minor  a  place  this  com- 
mand of  Christ's  occupied  in  the  Church's 
history.  We  have  been  slow  to  grasp  the 
full  significance  of  these  events,  and  have 
spent  ages  in  controversy,  while  the  little 
children  wandered;  and  have  often  been  far 
more  zealous  in  driving  heretics  or  unbeliev- 
ers out  of  the  Church,  than  in  training  the 
future  members  within  the  fold.  For  the 
child  of  to-day  is  the  Church  of  the  future. 

According  to  Professor  Kidd,  the  dis- 
tinctive feature  of  nineteenth-century  civ- 
ilization is  its  regard  for  the  future  as 
shown  by  its  interest  in  the  child.  But  the 
potentiality  of  child  life  is  only  just  being 
realized;  its  psychology  is  studied,  and  the 
value  of  early  and  correct  education  em- 
phasized; and  the  enormous  effect  that  physi- 
cal environment  may  have  upon  the  child's 


12        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

tendencies  toward  good  and  evil  is  pro- 
foundly impressed  upon  many.  The  import 
of  these  facts  the  Church  is  slowly  per- 
ceiving, but  she  has  not  yet  used  all  the 
forces  that  science  has  put  into  her  hands. 
She  seems  like  one  awakening  from  sleep, 
whose  eyes  are  opened  and  whose  body 
moves  slightly,  while  the  full  personality 
still  slumbers.  For  her  leaders  see  the  need 
and  the  importunate  opportunity ;  but  the 
whole  body  of  her  membership  is  not  yet 
aroused  to  its  duty  and  privilege  in  this 
matter. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  note  some  rela- 
tions in  which  the  Church  has  stood  to  the 
child  from  an  early  date.  Earliest  was  youth- 
ful, or  infant,  baptism,  whereby  the  Church 
claimed  the  children  as  her  own.  In  the 
mediaeval  Church,  the  ceremony  of  baptism 
for  the  child  strikingly  expressed  this  idea 
of  membership.  The  child  was  met  outside 
the  church  door  by  the  priest,  and  after 
some  ceremonial,  which  included  a  prayer 
of  exorcism,  was  then  led  into  the  church 
by  the  priest.  After  the  baptism,  which  was 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH       13 

usually  trine  immersion,  he  was  vested  in  a 
white  robe,  and  a  lighted  candle  was  put  into 
his  hand,  symbolizing  by  the  pure  vesture 
and  burning  light  the  preparation  to  meet 
the  heavenly  bridegroom. 

In  the  lifetime  of  our  blessed  Lord  the 
Jewish  Church  was  diligently  instructing 
her  youth  in  regularly  established  schools, 
in  which  the  law,  the  prophets,  the  Jewish 
history  and  poetry  were  taught ;  and  it  is 
probable  that  it  was  in  one  of  these  schools 
that  He  manifested  that  growth  in  wisdom 
which  was  recorded  of  Him.  The  Christian 
Church  early  realized  the  need  of  instruc- 
tion, for  her  future  members,  old  or  young, 
and  the  catechumens  were  fully  instructed. 
In  these  schools  catechisms  were  used;  these 
were  brief  statements  of  great  doctrines  and 
truths,  given  orally,  and  easily  memorized; 
so  that  the  catechumens  might  be  qualified 
to  "  give  to  every  man  a  reason  for  the  faith 
that  was  in  him."  By  this  means  they  learned 
the  chief  facts  of  the  Gospel  narratives,  and 
were  taught  faith  by  the  Creed,  hope  from 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  and   charity  from   the 


14         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

Decalogue,  with  Its  prescribed  duties  to  God 
and  man. 

But  in  the  darker  and  decadent  days  of 
the  Church  this  form  of  instruction  lan- 
guished. With  the  stirring  of  the  Reforma- 
tion catechetical  instruction  was  revived  as  a 
valuable  aid  to  knowledge  of  the  truth ;  and 
reformers  of  widely  varying  views  saw  its 
importance.  Calvin  laid  great  stress  upon  the 
Sunday  noon  instruction  of  children,  and 
wrote  a  catechism  intended  for  them,  but 
his  work  was  hardly  adapted  to  the  child 
mind.  Luther  vehemently  exclaimed,  "  Let 
the  people  be  taught;  let  schools  be  opened 
for  the  poor,  let  the  truth  reach  them  in 
simple  words  in  their  own  mother  tongue, 
and  they  will  believe ! "  To  facilitate  this 
teaching,  he  wrote  his  own  catechism  in 
such  simple  phrases  that  it  ''did  much  to 
mould  the  character  of  the  German  people." 
The  Westminster  Catechism  has  been  an 
influence  in  character  building  for  the  older 
generation  of  Presbyterians  all  over  the 
world;  and  although  many  of  its  definitions 
are  difficult  for  children,  yet  this  document 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH        15 

has  been  *' closely  associated  with  Scottish 
public  elementary  education,"  and  a  rugged 
piety  built  itself  upon  "the  chief  end  of 
man  is  to  glorify  God."  By  the  fifty-ninth 
canon  of  1603,  and  the  rubric  of  the  Prayer 
Book,  the  clergy  were  enjoined  to  teach  the 
catechism  of  the  English  Church,  which  was 
set  forth  in  1549,  on  Sundays  and  on  holy 
days  after  the  second  lesson  at  Evening 
Prayer;  and  the  heads  of  families  were  held 
accountable  for  the  religious  instruction  of 
their  families  and  dependents.  The  brief 
and  simple  statements  of  this  catechism 
were  easy  to  learn,  and  "  its  very  simplicity 
has  given  it  a  firm  hold  on  the  inner  life 
and  consciousness  of  devout  members  of 
the  Anglican  Communion  throughout  the 
world." 

But  all  this  provision  concerned  itself 
chiefly  with  those  within  the  fold  of  the 
Church,  and  many  good  people  began,  after 
a  while,  to  realize  that  the  multitude  were 
growing  up  in  ignorance  of  any  religious 
teaching.  John  Wesley,  as  early  as  1737, 
held  Sunday  classes,  while  in  charge  of  the 


i6        A  CHILD^S  RELIGION 

parish  of  Savannah,  Georgia.  In  1782,  the 
philanthropist,  Robert  Raikes,  opened  a 
school  for  poor  children;  at  first  combining 
secular  and  religious  instruction,  and  hold* 
ing  its  sessions  on  Saturday  and  Sunday. 
The  use  of  child  labor  in  the  mills  soon 
made  it  impossible  for  the  children  to  come 
except  on  Sundays.  The  industrial  evolu- 
tion which  characterized  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  also  stirred  the  Church 
to  follow  Raikes's  lead,  and  organize  Sun- 
day-Schools on  an  extensive  scale. 

So  the  movement  has  grown,  until  now 
an  eminent  encyclopaedist  asserts  that  "there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  great  Sunday-School 
organizations  of  the  various  churches  still 
deserve  to  be  reckoned  among  the  educa- 
tional assets  of  the  nation,  and  as  agencies, 
both  of  religious  instruction  and  of  general 
culture,  they  may  tend,  under  modern  edu- 
cational and  religious  developments,  to  play 
an  increasingly  important  part." 

Although  the  necessity  for  a  Sunday- 
School  is  an  accepted  fact,  and  these  schools 
are  established  in  every  parish,  there  are 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH        17 

important  questions  concerning  them  still 
unsolved,  which  relate  chiefly  to  their  man- 
agement and  conduct.  Some  of  these  we 
shall  now  consider. 

There  are  many  systems  in  vogue,  all 
trying  to  answer  the  question,  What  shall 
the  Sunday-School  teach  ?  If  we  remember 
that  it  is  the  Church  of  Christ  dealing  with 
its  own  present  or  prospective  members,  we 
shall  see  that  above  all  things  it  must  teach 
Jesus  Christ.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  ground 
the  children  in  the  facts  of  the  Bible,  if  we 
do  not  teach  its  spirit.  A  child  may  be  able 
to  tell  the  story  of  every  miracle,  and  de- 
scribe every  great  event  in  the  life  of  our 
Lord,  and  still  fail  to  grasp  the  fact  that  He 
was  an  actual  personality,  and  really  lived 
on  earth ;  or  that  his  life  had  or  has  any 
bearing  on  our  daily  life.  We  must  make 
this  a  part  of  the  child's  life  by  very  definite 
teaching,  not  contenting  ourselves  with  the 
inculcation  of  motives  alone.  Scientists  tell 
us  that,  even  when  a  person  is  hypnotized, 
he  cannot  be  compelled  to  do  a  thing  which 
he  has  been  definitely  taught  is  wrong ;  so 


i8        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

that  carefully  trained  people  cannot  be  made 
to  steal  or  to  murder^  because  the  definite 
instruction  of  early  life  has  created  an  inhib- 
itive  process,  which  controls  the  will  in  those 
directions.  So  let  us  teach,  "Thou  shalt," 
and  "  Thou  shalt  not,"  and  help  the  child 
to  bring  all  the  actions  of  life  into  one  or 
the  other  of  these  categories. 

And  because  it  is  the  Church's  school,  we 
teach  the  child  the  historic  creeds  which 
embody  the  faith  of  Christendom ;  and  we 
should  teach  him  also  the  history  of  that 
Church,  that  he  may  know  the  connection 
between  apostolic  days  and  ours,  and  rever- 
ence the  hoary  and  venerable  body  which, 
whatever  her  mistakes  may  have  been,  has 
still  guarded  the  faith  through  nearly  twenty 
centuries. 

But  these  things  must  be  vitalized  also. 
A  creed  is  not  merely  a  form  of  words  — 
a  creed  means  a  life ;  and  those  old  Cru- 
saders, who  stood  with  hand  on  sword  as 
they  recited  the  creed,  had  the  right  idea. 
"  I  believe,  therefore  I  serve,"  is  the  full  ex- 
tension of  a  creed,,  for  "  faith  without  works 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH         19 

is  dead."  Hence  it  follows  that  the  child 
should  be  taught  definite  forms  of  service 
for  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  well  as  words 
of  faith.  In  the  work  of  the  Church  as  well 
as  outside  of  it  he  should  be  made  to  know 
where  and  how  a  child  can  help  to  conquer 
the  world  for  Christ ;  for  service  stirs  love 
and  increases  loyalty. 

It  is  eminently  in  the  province  of  the 
Sunday-School  to  teach  a  reverence  for  holy 
things,  and  a  reverent  demeanor  in  church. 
That  there  is  a  crying  need  for  such  teach- 
ing among  our  American  children  and 
adults,  any  one  who  travels  widely  may 
easily  observe.  Let  us  teach  it  early,  for  a 
character  without  reverence  misses  much  in 
depth  and  a  proper  adjustment  to  life.  And 
it  must  be  taught  by  example  as  well  as 
precept. 

Since  the  object  of  a  Sunday-School  is  to 
train  the  future  membership  of  the  Church, 
confirmation  is  a  distinct  point  to  be  attained, 
and  it  is  toward  this  that  the  rector,  as  pastor, 
must  lead  his  little  lambs.  "  I  will  give  you 
pastors  according  to  mine  heart,  who  shall 


20        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

feed  you  with  knowledge  and  understand- 
ing" (Jeremiah  3:  15),  was  one  of  the 
promises  of  the  golden  future  for  obedient 
Israel,  and  when  such  feed  the  lambs  they 
are  well  fed. 

Not  always  has  there  been  the  careful  in- 
struction and  preparation  that  now  usually 
precedes  that  rite ;  and  Bishop  Cosins  relates 
that,  even  after  the  Reformation,  bishops 
would  confirm  candidates  in  the  highways 
and  on  the  streets  without  any  "  sacred  solem- 
nity." That  time  has  happily  gone  by,  and 
the  parishes  are  few  where  conscientious  and 
faithful  instruction  is  not  given  to  the  candi- 
dates for  confirmation.  To  the  properly 
trained  child  confirmation  will  be  a  longed- 
for  privilege,  and  the  young  heart  will  glow 
with  the  desire  to  induce  others  to  enjoy  this 
privilege. 

There  is  a  great  waste  of  spiritual  energy 
just  here  in  many  cases;  and  the  faithful  pas- 
tor should  see  to  it  that  every  confirmed 
person  is  set  to  work  at  once.  Let  each  be 
made  to  feel  that  the  least  that  one  can  do, 
and  the  first  thing  to  be  done,  is  to  find  some 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH        21 

one  person  to  whom  he  can  act  the  part  of 
brother  and  help  him  to  find  the  Christ  cen- 
ter of  life.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
upon  the  inculcation  of  this  spirit  depends 
the  future  growth  of  the  Church,  "the  gift 
that  is  in  us "  by  the  laying  on  of  hands, 
needs  stirring  up  if  it  is  to  increase. 

There  still  remain  two  questions  concern- 
ing the  Sunday-School,  and  upon  the  answers 
to  these  its  success  must  largely  depend. 
Who  shall  be  the  scholars  and  the  teachers? 
and  how  can  we  get  them  ? 

It  is  not  always  an  easy  matter  to  get  even 
all  the  baptized  children  of  the  Church  to 
come  to  Sunday-School.  There  are  cases 
known -^  few,  I  trust  —  where  the  little  chil- 
dren of  the  rich  will  not  come  to  a  Sunday- 
School  which  contains  poor  children,  for 
fear  of  contracting  some  disease.  One  parish 
meets  this  need  by  having  a  Saturday  school 
for  the  religious  instruction  of  the  little 
children  of  the  rich,  while  the  poor  come  to 
the  regular  Sunday-School.  How  this  plan 
will  meet  the  situation  is  yet  problematical, 
for  it  is  still  on  trial. 


22        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

A  personal  canvass  of  the  households  of  the 
parish  and  the  neighborhood  seems  to  be  the 
most  effective  way  of  reaching  the  children. 
A  most  influential  method  also  is  to  encour- 
age the  boys  and  girls  already  in  the  Sunday- 
School  to  bring  recruits,  stipulating  that 
they  shall  not  be  drawn  from  other  schools. 
Every  member  of  the  parish  should  be  on 
the  alert  to  get  children  into  the  training 
school  of  the  Church ;  for  unless  every  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  realizes  the  importance 
of  training  children,  and  takes  some  part  in 
furthering  that  work,  by  effort  and  example, 
it  cannot  all  be  done.  The  work  of  register- 
ing every  child  born  in  the  parish  on  the 
Cradle  Roll  of  the  Sunday-School  might  well 
be  done  by  those  who  do  not  teach  in  it;  the 
child  thus  grows  up  in  the  Sunday-School. 

There  is  a  great  call  for  teachers  and  a 
great  need  for  their  training,  for  to  the 
awakened  consciousness  of  to-day  it  is  not 
enough  that  a  teacher  should  interest  her 
class,  she  must  really  train  and  teach  them. 
It  seems  that  it  would  be  a  wise  provision 
for  this  need  to  have  a  Normal  Class  con- 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH        23 

nected  with  every  Sunday-School.  This  class 
might  meet  on  a  week-day,  if  that  proved  to 
be  more  convenient,  although  the  moral  effect 
would  be  better  if  its  sessions  were  held  at 
the  regular  hour.  Here  the  older  pupils, 
young  men  and  young  women,  could  be 
taught  how  to  tell  a  Bible  story,  how  to 
explain  great  doctrines  simply,  and  how  to 
keep  order  and  excite  interest  in  the  things 
of  the  spirit.  Fathers  and  mothers  of  young 
children  could  attend  this  class  for  Instruc- 
tion, for  many  parents  need  such  help, 
and  would  welcome  it.  This  need  not  be  a 
rector's  class,  for  all  rectors  are  not  teachers, 
unfortunately;  perhaps  in  the  future  a  course 
in  pedagogy  will  be  provided  and  required 
by  our  theological  seminaries  to  fit  the  men 
for  the  teaching  work  that  every  rector  finds 
opportunity  to  do.  A  successful  teacher  of 
experience  would  be  the  best  leader. 

But  still  the  question  comes,  How  shall  we 
get  men  and  women  to  teach  in  our  Sunday- 
Schools  ?  Train  the  Sunday-School  children 
for  it;  let  the  Normal  Class  be  the  goal  of  their 
endeavor  through  the  years  of  their  pupilage, 


24        A  CHILD^S  RELIGION 

and  impress  upon  them  their  moral  obh'ga- 
tion  to  teach  as  they  have  been  taught.  And 
further,  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice  still  lives 
in  the  Church,  and  although  it  may  mean  the 
giving  up  of  a  Sunday  afternoon  of  relaxa- 
tion, I  believe  that  the  teachers  may  be 
found.  Let  the  Church  pray  for  her  teachers, 
as  for  her  priests,  and  pray  earnestly  to  find 
them,  that  those  whom  the  Lord  has  called 
may  offer  themselves  for  this  work. 

For  truly  in  this  time  of  multiplied  means 
to  make  a  Sunday-School  interesting  and 
effective,  we  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  that 
the  personality  of  the  teachers  is  the  greatest 
asset.  We  may  have  the  most  approved 
kindergarten  methods  for  the  primary,  and 
may  use  the  most  complete  and  artistic  helps 
in  the  whole  school,  and  have  the  best  music 
obtainable;  but,  unless  we  have  men  and 
women  who  can  teach  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
Christ-life  out  of  the  fullness  of  a  firm  be- 
lief and  a  precious  experience,  our  teaching 
will  be  in  vain. 

What  shall  the  Church  of  the  future  be? 
Shall  it  be  marked  by  a  deep  and  thorough 


CHILD  AND  CHURCH        25 

knowledge  of  the  Word  of  God,  by  zeal 
for  his  Church  and  his  cause,  by  love  for 
the  unregenerate  world,  and  a  desire  to 
spread  the  glad  tidings  to  them?  The 
answer  must  come  from  the  children  of  to- 
day, in  the  Sunday-School,  or  out  of  it  now, 
the  baptized  members  of  our  Church.  How 
are  we  training  them  for  the  great  work 
whose  continuance  and  expansion  must  de- 
pend upon  them? 

A  little  boy,  who  was  taken  to  church  for 
the  first  time,  was  greatly  impressed  as  the 
choir  came  in  singing,  "  Onward,  Christian 
soldiers,"  his  favorite  hymn.  He  turned  in 
great  excitement  to  his  grandmother  and 
asked,  ^'Is  that  the  'cross  of  Jesus  going  on 
before '  and  are  those  little  boys  the  really 
truly  Christian  soldiers  ?  " 

Yea,  verily,  and  before  them  lies  the  bat- 
tle for  righteousness. 


Ill 

CHILDREN  AND   MISSIONS 

THE  most  fascinating  chapters  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  are  those  great 
ones  which  tell  the  story  of  her  missionary 
triumphs.  They  mark  the  stages  of  her 
growth  far  more  clearly  than  any  chrono- 
logical record  of  dogma  does.  For  missions 
are  faith  in  action,  theology  vitalized,  the 
continuing  witness  to  the  Church  Militant. 

The  history  of  the  primitive  Church  is 
written  in  the  lives  and  labors  of  St.  Paul, 
St.  Barnabas,  and  those  other  sons  of  the 
faith,  who  jostled  the  world  out  of  its  bloody 
grooves,  and  taught  the  gospel  of  the  king- 
dom of  peace. 

The  conquest  of  Christendom  was  not 
the  work  of  a  year,  nor  even  of  a  century ; 
but  in  those  early  days,  every  convert 
seemed  to  feel  the  obligation  to  missionary 
effort;  and  some  of  them  did  notable  work. 
In  the  fourth  century  we  find  that  the  con- 


CHILDREN  AND  MISSIONS     27 

version  of  the  whole  kingdom  of  Iberia 
(now  Asian  Georgia)  was  ascribed  to  Nino, 
an  Armenian  girl. 

The  history  of  the  early  British  Church 
is  a  noble  chronicle  of  missionary  efforts. 
From  the  secluded  churches  of  Scotland 
and  Ireland,  the  fruit  of  the  labors  of  St. 
Patrick  and  St.  Columba,  went  out  compa- 
nies of  missionaries  whose  ''  zeal  seemed  to 
take  the  world  by  storm."  And  in  the  next 
century  we  find  companies  of  noble  men 
and  women,  from  the  newly  evangelized 
English  churches,  going  over  to  those  Ger- 
man wilds  where  Winifred  or  St.  Boniface 
won  his  martyr's  crown.  It  has  been  said  of 
these  English  companies  that  "  the  energy 
of  warriors  was  exhibited  in  the  enterprise 
of  conversion  and  teaching." 

Coming  down  to  a  later  day,  we  find  that 
missions  have  played  a  large  part  in  our  own 
national  history;  for  French  Roman  Catho- 
lic missionaries  were  among  those  early  ex- 
plorers, who  found  their  journeys  "as  diffi- 
cult as  the  way  to  heaven."  Englishmen  also 
realized  that  a  new  country  meant  a  new 


28         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

opportunity  for  preaching  the  Gospel;  and 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  gave  one  hundred 
pounds  "  for  the  propagation  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  in  Virginia."  The  "Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  New  Eng- 
land and  the  parts  adjacent "  was  formed  in 
England,  and  among  its  missionaries  was 
John  Eliot,  "the  apostle  to  the  Indians"; 
practical  John  Eliot,  the  precursor  of  the 
modern  missionary,  who  translated  not  only 
the  Bible  into  the  Indian  tongue,  but  also  a 
book  on  logic,  that  by  learning  the  law  of 
reason  the  Indians  might  be  better  fitted  to 
understand  the  Scriptures. 

We  cannot  follow  here  the  thrilling  story 
of  the  Moravian  missions,  nor  yet  of  the 
great  awakening  of  the  Church  by  William 
Carey,  in  1792.  Nor  need  we  dwell  upon 
our  own  time,  which  has  seen  the  Sandwich 
Islands  Christianized  and  the  Prayer  Book 
translated  by  their  king;  has  seen  Japan 
take  rank  as  a  great  power,  and  witnessed 
the  birth  of  a  Chinese  republic,  tolerant  of 
Christianity  and  indebted  to  it. 

The  new  life  which  is  stirring  the  hearts 


CHILDREN  AND  MISSIONS     29 

of  Christians  to-day  is  manifested  on  the 
mission  fields.  Schools,  hospitals,  printing- 
presses  stand  side  by  side  with  churches. 
To  save  men's  souls  is  only  part  of  the  work; 
to  save  their  bodies,  which  may  be  "the 
temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  is  seen  to  be 
divine  service  also.  We  heal  and  teach  these 
people  that  when  they  have  been  thus  as- 
sured of  our  sympathetic  humanity,  they 
may  receive  the  preaching  of  our  Chris- 
tianity. 

If  now  some  one  asks,  "  Why  do  we 
have  missionaries?"  we  may  point  to  the 
record  of  the  past;  for  the  Church  has  grown 
in  power  and  spirituality  as  she  has  awak- 
ened to  the  need  about  her,  and  taught  the 
truth  to  others.  It  is  as  true  of  the  body 
spiritual  as  of  the  body  physical,  that  it  must 
be  exercised  if  it  is  to  grow. 

As  a  part  of  Church  history,  therefore, 
needs  must  that  we  teach  missions  to  chil- 
dren; nor  should  we  forget,  in  presenting 
the  subject,  that  when  Jesus  Christ  came  as 
a  missionary,  He  came  as  a  little  child;  and 
the  further  fact,  that  a  very  large  part  of  our 


30        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

work  concerns  itself  with  children.  These 
facts  help  children  to  relate  missions  to 
themselves. 

But  the  obligation  to  teach  missions  is 
higher  than  Church  history.  It  follows  nat- 
urally our  teaching  of  the  creed  as  service, 
of  the  necessity  of  patterning  our  lives  after 
the  self-sacrificing  life  of  our  Master.  Then, 
when  our  children  have  learned  to  love  the 
Saviour  for  themselves,  it  is  easy  to  arouse 
their  interest  in  people  who  do  not  know 
Him,  and  to  stir  their  zeal  to  serve.  For  in 
such  teaching  the  child  must  learn  that  re- 
ligion is  not  a  thing  for  himself  alone,  but 
that  he  is  the  trustee  of  a  precious  treasure 
to  be  shared  with  others.  There  is  a  noblesse 
oblige  about  missions,  and  the  child  who 
knows  the  story  of  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity to  his  ancestors,  will  feel  the  force  of 
that  obligation.  He  learns  vividly  from 
missions,  what  applied  Christianity  is,  and  a 
new  appreciation  is  awakened  in  him  of  that 
dynamic  power  of  the  love  of  Christ  which 
sends  men  and  women  out,  at  the  hazard  of 
their  lives,  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  the 


CHILDREN  AND  MISSIONS     31 

love  of  God.  These  are  the  considerations 
which  answer  the  question,  "  Why  teach 
missions  to  children?"  For  if  the  Church 
of  the  future  is  to  have  the  missionary 
spirit,  it  must  be  aroused  in  the  children  of 
to-day. 

In  presenting  the  subject  of  missions  to 
children,  manifestly  our  first  duty  is  to  give 
them  a  clear  and  intelligent  idea  of  the  con- 
notation of  the  terms  "  missions"  and  "  mis- 
sionaries"; and  to  satisfy  their  inquiries  as 
to  the  reason  why  people  go  on  missions, 
and  how  we  can  be  said  to  send  them. 

Concrete  illustration  is  the  keynote  for 
the  teaching  of  children ;  and  to  teach  mis- 
sions it  is  well  to  have  "a  real  live  mission- 
ary" talk  to  the  children,  whenever  this  is 
possible.  For  they  —  and  their  elders  as 
well  —  are  apt  to  put  all  missionaries  into 
the  category  of  strange  people,  like  the  peo- 
ple in  a  book;  and  it  is  a  necessary  shock 
for  them,  to  see  that  these  are  only  every- 
day men  and  women,  whose  great  love  for 
Christ  is  the  only  extraordinary  thing  about 
them.    It  opens  a  child's  eyes  to  the  possi- 


32         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

bilities  of  service  by  himself  in  this  direct 
tion. 

The  stories  of  what  missions  have  done 
for  peoples  in  other  lands,  of  the  social 
transformations  vi^hich  they  have  effected, 
and  their  tales  of  heroism,  are  fit  subjects  for 
children.  The  annals  of  any  mission  station 
could  furnish  stirring  stories  of  danger  and 
heroism  to-day.  Tales  of  Mackay  of  the 
Uganda,  or  Paton  among  the  cannibals  of  the 
New  Hebrides,  could  be  told  as  thrillingly 
as  any  dime  novel  of  adventure.  Stories  of 
Martyn  and  Carey,  of  Judson,  ZinzendorfF 
and  Taylor;  of  the  devotion  and  heroism  in 
persecution  of  Chinese  converts,  of  the  won- 
derful record  of  sacrifice  and  success  of  Pas- 
tor Hsi  of  the  China  Inland  Mission;  of 
Bishop  Hare  among  his  Indians,  and  Bishop 
Rowe's  journeys  in  Arctic  snows;  these 
would  interest  and  inspire  boys  and  girls, 
young  men  and  maidens.  These  stories  are 
but  an  extension  of  that  record  of  mission- 
ary heroism  and  martyrdom  given  in  the 
acts  of  the  apostles,  and  the  annals  of  the 
succeeding  centuries ;  they  show  a  true  apos- 


CHILDREN  AND  MISSIONS     33 

tolic  succession  of  zeal  and  love  and  devo- 
tion. 

The  great  cause  of  Christian  unity  is 
bound  up  with  missions ;  and  since  the  day 
when  John  Eliot,  at  peril  of  his  life  under 
Puritan  laws,  entertained  over  night  a  Jesuit 
priest  from  Canada,  that  he  might  take 
counsel  with  him  about  the  best  way  of 
reaching  the  Indians  with  the  message  of 
the  cross,  the  mission  field  has  been  the 
leader  in  the  breaking  down  of  barriers  be- 
tween Christians.  Therefore  it  is  well  not 
to  restrict  our  study  to  our  own  Church's 
missions.  Are  not  all  these  others  also  sol- 
diers of  the  cross,  fighting  the  good  fight, 
although  in  a  different  army  corps?  And 
it  may  follow  as  a  result  of  such  broad 
teaching  that  a  godly  emulation  may  stir 
our  children  to  have  their  own  Church  un- 
dertake a  larger  work  and  plant  her  banners 
on  a  wider  field. 

When  this  state  is  reached,  that  the  chil- 
dren desire  to  extend  the  work,  then  we 
must  teach  organization,  and  acquaint  them 
with  the  machinery  by  which  the  work  is 


34        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

carried  on.  Explain  the  boards  of  the  Church, 
and  the  tributary  societies,  and  trace  the 
journey  that  their  dimes  and  nickels  make 
to  the  treasury.  If  possible  the  teacher 
should  visit  the  Missions  House,  and  learn 
how  missionaries  are  chosen  and  commis- 
sioned and  equipped ;  and  how  supplies  are 
sent  out.  All  this  detail  is  interesting  to 
children,  and  will  make  them  understand 
what  "contingent  expenses"  mean,  and  how 
real  a  part  of  mission  work  they  are. 

There  is  a  story  told  of  a  small  boy  who 
made  his  missionary  offering  somewhat  re- 
luctantly, because  he  feared  that  it  would 
all  go  for  "  paper  and  string."  We  must 
make  it  clear  to  the  child,  how  small  a  pro- 
portion of  the  money  goes  in  that  way ;  and 
as  paper  and  string  are  necessary  for  the 
safe  carriage  of  the  bundle,  so  are  offices 
and  clerks  a  necessary  part  of  the  machinery 
which  carries  on  our  mission  work. 

The  privilege,  as  well  as  the  duty,  of  giv- 
ing should  be  emphasized.  On  one  occa- 
sion a  certain  colored  preacher  addressed 
his  congregation  on  this  subject  after  this 


CHILDREN  AND  MISSIONS    35 

fashion:  "The  Lord  don't  need  you,  my 
brethren,  to  preach  the  Gospel.  He  could 
make  the  clouds  his  messengers,  and  let 
the  winds  of  heaven  carry  his  message.  But 
He  lets  you  do  it;  He  gives  you  the  privi- 
lege; and  how  are  you  doing  it?  Just  look 
at  your  gifts ! "  Let  us  stress  our  Lord's  last 
command,  "Go  ye,  and  preach  and  bap- 
tize," as  one  of  the  strong,  positive,  direc- 
tions for  Christian  living. 

Now  the  question  arises,  can  any  of  this 
teaching  be  done  in  the  Sunday-School? 
At  least  once  a  month  a  short  talk  of  fifteen 
or  twenty  minutes  might  be  arranged  for,  to 
be  given  by  the  rector,  superintendent,  some 
teacher  or  a  visitor.  Take  a  different  coun- 
try or  theme  each  month,  and  tell  the  chil- 
dren something  of  the  Church's  work  there, 
illustrating  it  by  pictures  or  curios;  and  on 
other  Sundays  a  certain  portion  of  time 
should  be  allotted  the  teachers  for  class  in- 
struction. 

It  will  help  to  impress  the  smallness  of 
our  endeavor  for  "the  people  that  sit  in 
darkness,"  if  large  flags  bearing  a  cross  are 


36        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

placed  on  a  map  of  the  world,  in  the  Chris- 
tian countries,  and  similar  tiny  ones,  at  all 
mission  stations  in  the  worid.  Statistics  help 
also;  so  few  missionaries  to  so  many  millions 
of  people.  We  must  take  care  to  follow  the 
suggestion  of  the  Edinburgh  conference,  and 
always  allude  to  these  others  as  non-Chris- 
tian nations,  admitting  their  good  points, 
yet  showing  how  much  they  need  Jesus 
Christ. 

In  the  library  should  be  some  missionary 
books;  and  the  children  might  be  sent  to 
the  public  library  to  read  up  topics  for  class 
work.  This  makes  missions  seem  a  part  of 
their  necessary  knowledge.  It  is  an  eye- 
opener  for  a  child  to  find  an  item  about 
missions  in  the  newspaper;  it  takes  missions 
out  of  the  field  of  the  visionary  into  the 
realm  of  every  day. 

Many  things  may  and  must  happen  as  a 
result  of  interesting  children  in  missions. 
We  shall  set  before  them  ideals  of  life  and 
character,  the  Christ-life  embodied  in  noble 
men  and  women,  which  may  affect  their  own 
development.  We  shall  lift  them  out  of  the 


CHILDREN  AND  MISSIONS    37 

slough  of  a  materialistic  aspect  of  life,  by 
laying  stress  on  the  victories  of  the  spirit; 
and  their  faith  will  be  strengthened  as  they 
see  what  that  faith  has  done  for  others.  And 
not  only  the  foreign  world,  but  our  own 
cities  will  feel  the  regenerative  effects  of  this 
faith,  and  zeal,  and  hope,  of  the  children. 
For  we  shall  emphasize  the  patriotic  aspect 
of  home  missions;  and  since  the  continuity 
of  good  government  in  a  republic  depends 
upon  the  integrity  of  its  citizens,  so  the  edu- 
cation and  religious  training  of  those  citizens, 
in  our  cities  or  in  remote  districts,  is  a  mat- 
ter of  vital  interest  to  all  citizens  everywhere. 
It  was  to  the  children  that  despairing 
Christendom  looked,  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, to  win  back  the  holy  sepulcher,  hoping 
that  their  purity,  and  zeal,  and  love,  would 
prove  an  irresistible  force.  So  they  were  sent 
out  on  the  fatal  Children's  Crusade,  inspired, 
but  unprepared.  The  lesson  for  us  is  plain. 
We  must  so  train  and  prepare  our  children, 
that  this  awakened  army  may  lead  our 
Church  into  a  realization  of  her  duty,  and 
help  her  to  perform  it;  and  may  make  unity 


38         A  CHILD'S   RELIGION 

a  fact,  by  the  simplicity  of  their  faith,  and 
the  singleness  of  their  aim. 

As  we  look  out  upon  the  world  of  souls, 
held  in  the  bondage  of  ignorance  of  that 
love  divine,  let  us  lay  aside  all  minor  differ- 
ences, that  we  may  rally  all  our  forces  for 
the  attack.  Let  us  gather  them  from  home- 
taught,  and  Sunday -School -trained,  and 
Church-inspired  men  and  women  and  chil- 
dren, as  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  gathered  his 
forces  from  all  Christendom ;  and  then,  with 
a  faith  and  a  courage  like  that  of  the  Cru- 
saders, let  us  go  forward  to  the  attack,  with 
their  battle-cry  upon  our  lips,  "God  wills 
it!" 


IV 

THE   SONG   AND    THE   CHILD 

HAPPY  is  the  child  whose  life  begins 
with  song,  for  whom  the  first  conscious 
.sound  is  his  mother's  lullaby.  For  so  there 
is  born  in  his  soul  the  sense  of  melody  and 
of  rhythm,  the  sense  of  something  beyond 
the  commonplace,  and  the  world  becomes 
to  him  a  world  of  love ;  for  his  mother's 
song  has  mysteriously  conveyed  his  mother's 
love,  and  her  arms  encircle  his  world. 

For  the  effect  of  song  is  not  produced 
alone  by  a  mere  series  of  nervous  responses 
to  stimuli,  nor  yet  by  an  intellectual  appre- 
ciation of  the  words,  but  is  also  due  to  the 
fact,  that  song  is  one  of  the  truest  ways  of 
expressing  that  inner  self  which  would  other- 
wise be  inarticulate.  For  into  our  singing 
we  put  our  naked  souls,  rejoicing  in  the 
opportunity  thus  afforded  for  a  self-expression 
which  is  to  us,  and  to  those  who  hear  us,  a 
self-revelation  as  well.  If  a  word,  as  Arch- 


40        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

bishop  Trench  declares,  is  only  "man's 
thought  coming  out  that  it  may  behold  it- 
self," song  is  his  deepest  emotion  daring  to 
express  itself,  and  we  know  the  singer  as  we 
could  not  without  his  song. 

*'Four  parts  of  the  speech,"  wrote  a  col- 
ored man  in  a  civil  service  examination, 
"  are  laughing,  crying,  talking,  and  singing  ";. 
and  his  fundamental  philosophy  was  not  far 
wrong,  although  he  strayed  far  from  the  paths 
of  grammar.  The  happy  little  child  as  he 
skips  along  puts  into  song — which  is  the 
rhythmic  motion  of  words  —  his  feelings, 
his  experiences,  and  even  the  news  of  the 
day.  The  boy  of  later  age  may  sing  senti- 
mental college  songs ;  but,  for  fear  least  they 
betray  his  real  self,  he  adds  a  rollicking  and 
inappropriate  chorus. 

The  patriotism  of  nations  finds  expression 
in  their  songs;  the  French  Revolution  cen- 
tered around  the  "  Marseillaise  "  and  it  will 
yet  stir  patriotism  to  fever  pitch.  The  Ger- 
man Revolution  of  1848  became  cohesive 
and  effective  because  the  patriotic  songs  of 
the  group  of  poets,  of  whom  Korner  was  a 


SONG  AND  THE  CHILD      41 

leader,  had  prepared  the  hearts  of  the  peo- 
ple ;  and  "  Die  Wacht  am  Rhein"  has  united 
the  German  Empire. 

There  is  an  inarticulate  devotion  which 
finds  expression  in  song,  in  hymns,  which 
St.  Augustine  defined  as  "praise  to  God 
with  song."  It  has  been  noted  by  historical 
students  that  religion  flourished  best  when 
men  sang  most;  and  this  is  so,  because  the 
religious  feehngs  of  the  race,  which  are  its 
profoundest  emotions,  have  from  the  earliest 
times  expressed  themselves  most  easily  in 
song.  This  was  true  in  ancient  Egypt;  in 
the  ancient  Chaldean  worship  of  Abraham's 
time,  when  song  formed  an  important  part 
of  the  temple  ritual.  TertuUian  relates  that, 
at  the  love  feasts  of  the  early  Church,  each 
man  was  invited  to  come  forward  and  sing 
to  God's  praise  something  either  taken  from 
Scripture  or  of  his  own  composition.  "  One 
might  hear,"  writes  St.  Jerome  about  a.d. 
420,  "  the  ploughman  at  his  hallelujahs,  the 
mower  at  his  hymns,  and  the  vine-dresser 
singing  David's  psalms." 

It  was  the  songs  of  the  Reformation  that 


42        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

popularized  it,  and  Heine  called  Luther's 
great  hymn,  "A  mighty  fortress  is  our 
God,"  the  "Marseillaise  of  the  Reformation." 
In  restoring  congregational  singing,  "for  the 
comfort  of  such  as  delight  in  music,"  Queen 
Elizabeth  stipulated  that  the  hymns  should 
be  "in  the  best  sort  of  music  that  may  be 
conveniently  devised,  having  respect  that 
the  sentence  [i.e.,  sense]  of  hymns  be  under- 
standed  and  perceived." 

The  beautiful  hymns  of  Charles  Wesley 
sang  the  Gospel  into  many  hearts,  and  did 
much  for  the  success  of  the  great  Wesleyan 
movement.  In  all  ages  religious  music  has 
seemed  the  spontaneous  outburst  of  praise; 
its  ordered  movement  meant  uniformity  of 
worship,  instead  of  individual  cries  and  ap- 
peals; the  musical  tones  expressed  a  deeper 
fervor  than  the  words  alone  could  convey; 
and  something  of  that  "divine  afflatus" 
which  possessed  the  composer  of  the  hymn 
stirred  the  hearts  of  those  who  joined  in  the 
singing.  For  whether  it  be  by  means  of 
solemn  "De  Profundis"or  triumphant  "Te 
Deum,"  our  stoniest  griefs  dissolve  in  music, 


SONG  AND  THE  CHILD      43 

and  our  thoughts  rise  to  rapture  on  the 
wings  of  song. 

Song  has  served  many  uses ;  it  has  uttered 
the  miseries  of  captives  in  Babylon,  and  its 
epithalamions  have  greeted  happy  brides. 
It  has  nerved  men  for  battle  and  crowned 
their  victories.  The  stern  soldiers  of  Crom- 
well's armies  went  into  battle  singing  psalms; 
and  after  the  victory  of  Agincourt  the  Eng- 
lish army  voiced  its  thanksgiving  by  sing- 
ing Psalms  114  and  115.  Song  has  even 
been  used  controversially,  and  in  the  time 
of  St.  John  Chrysostom  the  streets  of  Con- 
stantinople were  enlivened  by  bands  of  the 
adherents  of  Arius  singing  the  light  hymns 
by  which  he  was  popularizing  his  doctrine, 
and  then  by  great  ceremonial  processions  of 
choirs  singing  the  stately  hymns  of  the 
Church.  The  riots  which  ensued  put  an  end 
to  this  musical  propaganda. 

Song  has  a  distinct  pedagogic  value,  for 
words  set  to  music  are  riveted  in  the  mem- 
ory by  the  double  hold  of  sense  and 
rhythm. 

It  is  because  of  its  tremendous  potential 


44         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

effect  that  a  ribald  song  seems  worse  than 
wicked  words,  for  its  influence  will  last 
longer.  "Let  me  make  the  songs  of  a  na- 
tion, and  I  care  not  who  makes  its  laws," 
said  the  great  De  Medici ;  and  the  first  indi- 
cation of  a  reformation,  either  national  or 
individual,  is  a  change  of  song.  ^'As  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he,"  says  the 
proverb ;  it  is  equally  true  that  as  a  man 
sings,  so  is  he  really,  for  the  songs  that  he 
sings  are  his  true  moral  index. 

These  are  the  considerations  that  give  song 
such  an  important  place  In  the  education 
of  the  child.  The  truth  may  be  so  inefface- 
ably  impressed  upon  his  mind  and  heart  by 
the  songs  that  he  sings  in  childhood,  that 
later  doubts  can  never  shake  his  faith  in 
the  divinity  and  presence  of  Christ;  and  al- 
though he  may  seem  to  scoff,  in  his  mem- 
ory there  must  linger  the  feelings  of  the 
child  as  he  sang,  — 

**  I  think  when  I  read  that  sweet  story  of  old. 
When  Jesus  was  here  among  men." 

And  the  last  day  alone  will  reveal  how  many 


SONG  AND  THE  CHILD      45 

souls  have  been  sung  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

These  facts  impose  a  grave  responsibility 
upon  all  who  are  concerned  in  the  education 
of  the  child.  For  the  expanding  heart  of  the 
child  will  find  expression  in  song,  and  it  is 
our  privilege  to  choose  the  vehicle  for  that 
expression,  to  determine  the  character  of 
his  songs. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  a  child  must 
be  taught  only  light  airs  and  words ;  chil- 
dren are  often  extremely  fond  of  minor 
keys,  as  though  pleased  by  the  contrast 
with  their  own  moods,  and  all  children  are 
naturally  religious.  They  are  in  such  a 
mysterious  world ;  they  are  so  used  to  the 
fact  that  they  cannot  understand  everything; 
they  feel  so  keenly  their  littleness  and  need 
of  protection,  —  that  it  is  easy  for  them  to 
accept  and  rejoice  in  the  possession  of  a 
heavenly  Father  and  an  invisible  but  per- 
sonal Saviour.  Here,  then,  is  our  problem, 
no  less  than  our  opportunity.  All  around 
him  the  child  hears  the  lively  airs,  and 
lighter  words,  of  the  popular  music  of  the 


46         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

day ;  and  it  is  sad,  indeed,  to  hear  the  tri- 
fling and  cheap  music  of  the  street  on  the 
lips  of  little  ones  whose  sweet  child  souls 
still  bear  the  heavenly  impress.  How  can 
we  give  them  something  that  shall  displace 
light  airs  by  good  music,  and  light  words, 
by  those  of  beauty  and  simple  devotion? 

In  the  earlier  days  of  the  Sunday-Schools, 
there  were  no  hymns  for  children,  and  they 
sang  the  same  hymns  that  their  elders  did. 
Then  a  few  attempts  were  made  to  write 
hymns  for  children.  Some  of  these  older  at- 
tempts would  be  amusing,  if  one  did  not 
reflect  upon  the  evidence  they  afford  of  a 
wasted  opportunity.  From  an  old  song- 
book  of  sixty  years  ago  comes  this  hymn:  — 

*'  As  Robert  Raikes  walked  out  one  day. 
He  saw  some  little  boys  at  play. 
Upon  the  holy  Sabbath  Day, 
Aplaying,  playing,  away. 
Then  away,  away,  we  can't  wait  any  longer. 
Away  to  the  Sunday-School.*' 

This  may  be  an  historical  statement,  but 

can  hardly  be  classed  as  a  devotional  hymn. 

From  a  Sunday-School  hymn  book  pub- 


SONG  AND  THE  CHILD      47 

Ushed  thirty-five  years  ago,  we  get  the  fol- 
lowing specimens :  — 

'*  Rosy  cheeks  will  pass  away. 
Pearly  teeth  will  soon  decay." 

Would  not  every  child  who  sang  that 
couplet  instinctively  think  of  the  dentist, 
and  forget  the  moral  lesson  with  which  the 
hymn  ended  ? 

The  second  selection  is  even  worse :  — 

**  Ring  the  bell  softly. 
There's  crape  on  the  door.** 

Imagine  a  crowd  of  happy  children  singing 
that  song  as  an  act  of  worship ! 

There  is  now  an  abundance  of  good 
hymns  for  children;  but  in  addition  to 
them  we  may  well  teach  the  great  hymns 
of  the  Church,  and  their  history.  Would  it 
not  awaken  in  the  child  a  sense  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  devotion  to  know  that  our  "Glo- 
ria in  Excelsis  "  was  the  early  Greek  "morn- 
ing hymn,"  and  has  been  used  in  Rome 
since  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian? 
He  would  sing  the  "  Te  Deum  "  with  awe, 
if  he  knew  that  it  had  expressed  the  praise 


48         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

of  Christian  congregations  since  the  fifth 
century,  and  that  it  was  associated  with  the 
conversion  of  St.  Augustine.  "  The  voices 
flowed  into  my  ears;  the  truth  distilled  into 
my  heart :  I  overflowed  with  devout  affec- 
tions, and  was  happy."  So  wrote  the  great 
doctor  of  the  Church. 

The  Crusaders  would  step  down  from 
their  historic  niches,  and  become  real  to  him, 
as  he  imagined  the  Red  Cross  knights  sing- 
ing, on  a  spring  morning,  in  Palestine,  the 
beautiful  "Crusaders'  Hymn":  — 

**  Fair  are  the  meadows,  - 

Fairer  still  the  woodlands. 

Robed  in  the  blooming  garb  of  Spring: 

Jesus  is  fairer, 

Jesus  is  purer. 

Who  makes  the  woeful  heart  to  sing." 

Tell  the  child  the  story  of  Martin  Luther 
in  the  Castle  of  the  Wartburg,  wrestling 
with  temptation  in  such  real  fashion  that  he 
threw  his  inkstand  at  the  wall,  to  crush  the 
devil  who  seemed  so  real  and  so  near.  As 
the  child  remembered  the  ink-spot  on  the 
wall,  he  would  appreciate  the  lines  of  the 
great  battle  hymn  of  that  strenuous  soul :  — 


SONG  AND  THE  CHILD     49 

«•  And  though  this  world  with  devils  filled 
Should  threaten  to  undo  us  ; 
We  will  not  fear,  for  God  has  willed 
His  truth  to  triumph  through  us.** 

Such  stories  would  make  history  and  religion 
vital  and  human  to  the  child ;  and  enable  him 
to  fuse  present  need  and  aspirations  with  the 
longings  and  struggles  of  the  past. 

In  order  that  hymns  may  reach  their  high- 
est usefulness  with  the  child,  they  should  be 
clearly  explained  to  him.  A  New  England 
grandmother  once  told  me  that  as  a  little 
child  at  church,  she  was  much  puzzled  to 
hear  the  congregation  sing,  —  as  she 
thought,  — 

**Lord,  how  delightful  'tis  to  see 
A  whole  assembly  wash  up  Thee." 

The  idea  shocked  her  sense  of  reverence, 
but,  child-like,  she  did  not  mention  her  per- 
plexity to  her  elders;  and  it  was  only  when 
she  covild  read  that  she  was  relieved  to  find 
that  the  hymn  really  said  :  — 

*'Lord,  how  delightful  'tis  to  see 
A  whole  assembly  worship  Thee," 

Another  child  thought  for  many  years 


50  A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

that  "  haven  guide  *'  was  a  place,  since  the 
line  seemed  to  be  sung,  — 

**  Safe  into  the  Havenguidc. " 

At  another  time  this  same  child,  unaware 
that  many  kinds  of  words  may  be  set  to 
hymn  music,  became  much  excited  at  hear- 
ing the  congregation  singing  the  familiar 
tune  of  "Greenville,"  and  turning  to  her 
mother  exclaimed  in  a  tragic  whisper,  "  Oh, 
mother,  they  're  singing 

"'Go  tell  Aunt  Sally 

The  old  gray  goose  is  dead,* 

and  it 's  in  church !  " 

The  appropriateness  of  the  sentiment  to 
the  child's  mind  and  feelings,  should  also 
be  considered,  if  song  is  to  be  more  than  a 
musical  exercise  for  the  child.  Not  only  must 
he  understand  what  he  sings,  but  he  must 
feel  the  truth  of  it ;  his  devotion  will  never 
become  articulate  by  singing  songs  whose 
sentiments  he  does  not  share.  In  the  full 
flush  of  youth  and  its  enjoyments,  he  does 
not  find  "earth  a  desert  drear";  nor  does 
he  feel  heaven  to  be  his  only  home,  when 


SONG  AND  THE  CHILD      51 

experiencing  the  loving  care  of  father  and 
mother :  nor  is  he  apt  to  sigh,  "  O  Paradise, 
O  Paradise,  who  doth  not  crave  for  rest," 
while  every  nerve  tingles  with  the  fun  of  a 
ball  game.  "  Fight  the  good  fight,"  he  can 
easily  understand,  for  he  is  playing  games 
to  win;  and  "Onward,  Christian  soldiers,*' 
stirs  every  child's  imagination  with  its  call 
to  activity.  Most  children  love  the  intimate 
picturesqueness  of  "  O  little  town  of  Beth- 
lehem," and  "  Joy  to  the  world  "  and  "  Hark, 
the  herald  angels  sing,"  give  him  that  joy 
of  real  self-expression  which  all  song  should 
afford. 

It  would  mean  much  to  our  children  if 
they  always  understood  what  they  sang  so 
well  that  it  really  voiced  their  own  emo- 
tions; for  song  would  then  do  a  double 
work  upon  them.  Their  souls  and  minds 
would  be  left  in  a  state  receptive  to  devout 
influences;  they  would  be  so  attuned  to  the 
rest  of  the  service  that  inattention  would  be 
minimized,  and  reverence  increased;  and 
the  seed  sown  in  such  good  ground  would 
bear  fruit  an  hundredfold. 


52         A  CHILD^S  RELIGION 

There  is  yet  another  consideration :  song 
is  one  of  the  hinges  on  which  memory  turns 
her  records ;  so  let  the  child  have  the  exam- 
ple of  the  elders  in  singing,  that  in  later 
years  he  may  remember,  "This  was  my 
father's  favorite  hymn";  "  My  mother  loved 
that  hymn."  Let  him  carry  in  his  memory 
the  full-hearted  way  in  which  the  congrega- 
tion joined  the  choir  in  singing  the  "  Mag- 
nificat *'  or  the  great  "  Te  Deum,"  the  "  Ben- 
edictus,"  the  "  Venite  "  and  "  Nunc  Dimittis." 
Give  him  these  splendid  examples,  and  he 
will  feel  that  "the  praise  of  God  in  song"  is 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  beautiful  comrade- 
ship in  song;  it  is  one  of  the  blessed  ties 
"that  bind  our  hearts  in  Christian  love."  I 
can  still  remember  the  curious  feeling  that 
possessed  me,  when,  as  a  child,  I  discovered 
that  many  well-known  hymns  did  not  belong 
to  any  one  group  of  worshipers;  but  that 
Episcopalians,  Congregationalists,  Presby- 
terians, Baptists,  and  Methodists  all  sang 
them.  And  great  was  my  astonishment  to 
learn  that  Roman  Catholics  also  sang  the 


SONG  AND  THE  CHILD      S3 

"  Venite  Adoremus."  And  then,  although  I 
was  too  young  to  know  Church  history,  my 
eyes  were  opened  to  a  great  truth,  and  there 
came  to  me  a  glimpse  of  what  the  real  unity 
of  Christendom  was;  and  there  arose  a  great 
longing  that  the  time  might  come  when  in 
the  great  essentials  we  should  all  be  one. 

"Hymnody,"  says  the  Right  Honorable, 
the  Earl  of  Selborne,  "has  embodied  the 
faith,  trust,  and  hope,  and  no  small  part  of 
the  inward  experience  of  generation  after 
generation  of  men,  in  many  different  coun- 
tries and  climates,  of  many  different  nations, 
and  in  many  varieties  of  circumstances  and 
conditions.  ...  It  bears  witness  to  the  force 
of  a  central  attraction  more  powerful  than 
all  causes  of  difference,  which  binds  together 
times  ancient  and  modern,  nations  of  vari- 
ous races  and  languages.  Churchman  and 
nonconformist,  churches  reformed  and  un- 
reformed :  to  a  true  fundamental  unity  among 
good  Christians;  and  to  a  substantial  iden- 
tity in  their  moral  and  spiritual  experiences." 

This  is  the  heritage  which  we  open  for 
the  child  by    the  judicious  selection,  and 


54  A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

intelligent  teaching,  of  the  hymns  of  the 
Church;  this  is  the  great  company  of  the 
faithful  into  which  he  enters  by  the  gate  of 
song;  and  he  feels  the  sense  of  comradeship 
with  the  strong  and  earnest  souls  of  all  ages. 
"  Earth  with  her  thousand  voices  praises 
God/*  sang  the  poet.  The  older  ecclesiastical 
artists  put  into  the  hands  of  the  angels  and 
cherubim,  in  their  pictures,  musical  instru- 
ments of  wood  and  silver  and  other  mate- 
rials ;  because,  as  they  quaintly  thought,  the 
dumb  trees  and  rocks  wanted  to  praise  God, 
and  could  only  do  so  by  being  made  into 
instruments  of  music.  The  soul  of  the  child 
is  likewise  struggling  to  express  itself;  let 
us  put  into  his  heart  the  songs  that  shall 
liberate  that  expression. 


THE   CHILD    AND    HIS   BOOK 

IN  the  Congressional  Library  there  is  a 
beautiful  series  of  lunettes  by  Alexander, 
representing  the  history  of  the  book.  The 
series  begins  with  a  picture  of  men  piling 
up  stones  to  form  a  memorial  cairn,  like  that 
at  Gilgal  which  marked  the  Jordan  crossing, 
and  was  intended  to  start  inquiry  among 
children's  children,  and  to  furnish  notes  in 
stone  for  the  future  story-tellers.  And  in  the 
next  picture  one  sees  an  Arab  wise  man,  sur- 
rounded by  a  group  of  desert  listeners,  to 
whom  he  is  recounting  the  stories  of  the 
tribe.  Then  follows  the  Indian  painting  his 
pictographs  on  a  skin ;  and  then  the  monu- 
mental hieroglyphs  of  Egypt.  The  series 
draws  to  a  close  with  the  patient  monk,  toil- 
ing with  brush  and  pen  over  his  illuminated 
manuscript;  and  reaches  its  splendid  cul- 
mination in  that  press  of  Gutenberg  which 
gave  wings  to  thought 


56  A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

And  as  one  remembers  also  that  savage 
who  was  wont  to  scratch  his  thoughts  on  a 
beech  leaf,  and  meditates  on  this  strange 
story  of  a  book,  the  question  arises.  What 
impulse  has  stirred  men,  what  desire  for 
remembrance  has  prompted  them,  savage 
and  civilized  alike,  to  strive  in  these  various 
ways  to  perpetuate  the  deeds  and  thoughts 
of  their  time?  It  seems  as  if  it  expressed  a 
striving  of  the  soul  that  felt  itself  immortal, 
and  struggled  to  express  its  immortality. 

This  is,  however,  mere  speculation;  yet 
by  all  these  evolutions  in  the  art  of  preserv- 
ing thought,  the  growing  self-consciousness 
of  the  race  has  developed.  Men  wrote,  at 
first,  of  battles  and  dynasties;  then  hymns 
of  worship ;  and  then  of  the  thoughts,  ex- 
periences, and  emotions  which  are  common 
to  all  men.  And  the  only  books  which  were 
great  enough  to  come  down  to  us  are  those 
which  interpreted  most  truly  the  universal 
life  of  men. 

In  our  own  age  the  advanced  self-con- 
sciousness of  the  race  expresses  itself  in 
books  which  describe  with  minuteness  every 


CHILD  AND  HIS  BOOK       57 

phase  of  life,  and  analyze  with  scalpel-like 
keenness  ''the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
heart."  The  last  discovery  in  science  fur- 
nishes materials  for  our  novels,  and  the  most 
awful  disaster  is  speedily  expanded  into 
many  volumes.  The  four  quarters  of  the 
globe  are  investigated  and  described  for  our 
delectation,  and  no  effort  is  spared  to  inform 
and  amuse  mankind. 

Among  its  many  other  names,  this  age 
has  been  called  the  "Era  of  the  Printed 
Page  " ;  and  it  is  preeminently  so,  since  we 
even  write  in  type.  In  old  China  men  used 
to  go  around  the  streets  to  gather  waste 
papers,  with  the  cry,  "Revere  and  spare  the 
printed  paper."  Back  of  the  cry  there  lies  a 
hint  of  the  mystery  of  printing,  that  strange 
magic  which  enables  arbitrary  symbols  to 
convey  and  preserve  for  us  those  psychic 
processes  of  other  minds  which  we  call 
thoughts.  But  the  multiplicity  of  printing- 
presses  has  destroyed  the  reverence  for  the 
printed  paper;  except,  perhaps,  among  chil- 
dren. For  them  something  of  the  mystery 
still  lingers. 


58         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

Some  years  ago  it  was  the  fashion  to  give 
lists  of  the  hundred  best  books,  according 
to  popular  vote  or  to  the  dictum  of  distin- 
guished men.  Then  we  have  lists  of  the 
books  that  have  helped.  Rarely  did  a  list 
of  the  hundred  worst  books  appear,  nor  did 
any  distinguished  or  undistinguished  person 
confess  which  were  the  books  that  had  hurt 
him.  For  most  people  know  that  books  are 
fruitful  sources  of  those  "evil  thoughts  which 
may  assault  and  hurt  the  soul."  Books  arc 
incarnated  thought,  and  one  may  be  helped 
or  hurt  by  contact  with  a  book  as  with  a 
person. 

This  is  preeminently  true  of  children. 
''  Where  did  you  hear  of  such  a  thing  ?  '* 
you  ask  a  child,  and  he  solemnly  replies, 
"  I  read  it  in  a  book  " ;  and  that  fact  settles 
its  truthfulness  for  him.  "  Why  did  you  do 
so  and  so?"  and  he  answers,  "The  boy  did 
so  in  the  book  I  just  read,"  and  that  seems 
to  him  a  sufficient  explanation.  It  was  an 
objection  often  urged  against  a  certain  class 
of  books,  common  a  generation  ago,  that  all 
the    good   children    died;    and    there  were 


CHILD  AND  HIS  BOOK       59 

doubtless  many  boys  and  girls  in  whom  the 
love  of  life  was  so  strong  that  they  resolved 
not  to  be  too  good  in  order  that  they  might 
remain  alive. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  especially  to  chil- 
dren books  are  very  important  things;  for 
the  child  sees  life  through  the  books  that  he 
reads,  and  his  ideas  are  formed,  his  desires 
stimulated,  and  his  standards  of  morality 
influenced  and  partly  formed  by  books.  The 
recognition  of  this  fact  has  led  to  the  publi- 
cation of  books  for  children  on  a  wide  range 
of  topics.  All  the  tablets  of  knowledge  are 
sugar-coated  for  them,  and  they  travel  toward 
learning  over  a  macadamized  road,  in  a 
rubber-tired  touring  car,  without  much  effort 
on  their  own  part.  Many  of  these  books  are 
admirable  in  tone  and  teaching,  while  some 
lay  so  much  stress  on  cleverness  that  they 
seem  to  regard  it  as  permissible  for  the  hero 
to  lie  and  steal  in  order  to  gain  his  end ;  and 
such  books  must  be  classed  as  unmoral,  if 
not  immoral. 

Since  books  so  greatly  influence  the  child 
mind,  there  is  surely  a  need  that  the  Church, 


6o        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

which  is  trying  to  train  him  for  God,  should 
see  to  it  that  the  right  sort  of  mental  food 
is  supplied  to  him. 

In  judging  a  child's  book  there  are  two 
things  that  must  be  considered:  Is  it  such 
a  book  as  a  child  ought  to  read;  that  is, 
will  its  influence  be  helpful  in  the  nurture 
of  the  young  personality?  And  is  it  so  writ- 
ten that  a  child  will  want  to  read  it,  or  have 
it  read  to  him?  The  answer  to  the  first 
question  establishes  a  standard  below  which 
it  must  not  fall;  the  second  fixes  the  stand- 
ard which  it  must  reach  in  order  to  be  suc- 
cessful: the  adult  makes  the  first;  the  child, 
the  second. 

The  adult  insists  that  the  child's  book 
shall  be  distinctly  moral  in  tone,  that  it  shall 
emphasize  the  good  in  life,  and  shall  fur- 
nish the  child  with  suitable  models  for  his 
own  behavior.  For  children,  even  to-day, 
are  mentally  like  the  peasant  folk  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  for  whom  mystery  and  mir- 
acle plays  were  acted,  that  they  might  have 
concrete  illustrations  of  the  virtues  and  see 
the  punishment  meted  out  to  wickedness. 


CHILD  AND  HIS  BOOK      6i 

It  is  also  required  that  the  illustrations  shall 
help  the  child  to  understand  the  story;  and 
that,  artistically,  they  too  shall  be  moral,  and 
teach  truth  in  form  and  beauty  in  expres- 
sion and  idea;  that  so  they  may  furnish 
suitable  mental  pictures  for  the  child. 

Any  one  who  knows  children  is  aware  of 
the  keenness  of  their  critical  powers,  and 
the  sureness  of  their  likes  and  dislikes;  and 
their  decisions  are  as  prompt  and  irrevocable 
about  books  as  about  people.  No  amount  of 
argument  can  persuade  a  child  to  like  a  book 
if  he  has  once  decided  that  it  does  not  reach 
his  unformulated,  and,  perhaps,  uncon- 
scious standard. 

And  what  does  a  child  demand  in  a  book  ? 

Curled  up  in  an  easy-chair  with  his  book 
upon  his  lap,  one  sees  the  child  so  absorbed 
in  his  story  that  he  is  oblivious  to  everything 
else ;  the  sun  shines  over  him,  the  birds  are 
calling  outside,  but  he  heeds  not.  What  can 
hold  a  child  so  closely  ?  He  has  found  a  book 
that  stirs  his  imagination  by  its  vivid  picturing 
of  historic  deeds,  or  its  beguiling  recital  of 
strange  adventures  in  unknown  lands,  or  its 


62        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

fantastic  conceits  of  things  and  life  in  the  un- 
known and  unseen  regions  of  fancy,  or  its 
realistic  stories  of  the  doings  of  boys  and 
girls  situated  like  himself 

Sometimes  the  author  of  the  book  has 
*'  made  things  lively  by  making  them  local," 
to  quote  Chesterton's  phrase,  and  all  young- 
sters delight  in  such  localization.  He  is  fond 
of  fairy  stories  pure  and  simple;  for  to  him 
dwarfs  and  gnomes,  brownies,  pixies,  elves, 
and  nymphs  are  just  as  credible  personages 
as  Abyssinians  or  Thibetans,  Maoris,  Zulus, 
or  any  other  people  beyond  his  acquaintance. 
It  is  all  one  to  the  child;  world-conscious- 
ness is  dawning  or  nascent,  hot  yet  devel- 
oped, and  to  him  all  stories  belong  in  the 
same  category. 

He  is  keen  to  detect  any  discrepancies 
between  the  descriptions  and  the  illustrations 
of  a  book ;  for  in  his  book  he  demands  truth, 
as  well  as  an  appeal  to  the  imagination  and 
a  story  told  in  a  human  way.  He  wants  his 
story  with  clear-cut  outlines,  in  distinct  blacks 
and  whites,  without  any  shadowy  dimness  of 
characters,  or  gray  shadings  of  moral  actions. 


CHILD  AND  HIS  BOOK       63 

The  child  is  critical  of  style,  and  a  story 
told  in  language  that  is  "simple  to  the  verge 
of  baldness"  is  not  acceptable  to  him.  He 
likes  a  few  words  that  he  cannot  understand, 
but  must  reach  after  —  for  do  not  the  grown- 
ups consult  the  dictionary? — and  he  feels  the 
thrill  of  aconscious  acquisition  of  knowledge 
when  he  must  inquire  about  a  word.  Abso- 
lute novelty  of  subject  is  not  necessary;  for, 
if  given  a  dress  in  the  language  of  to-day, 
the  age-old  stories  will  charm  children  now 
as  they  have  through  all  the  centuries. 

Fundamentally  there  is  but  one  demand ; 
the  story  must  be  so  furnished  with  familiar 
detail  that  the  child  can  relate  it  to  his  own 
life,  and  so  make  it  seem  real.  This  furnishes 
the  justification  for  good  historical  fiction;  it 
teaches  the  child  in  a  most  impressive  way 
the  events  and  characters  of  history,  so  that 
he  can  feel  the  time  and  appreciate  the  situ- 
ations. In  ,  a  Sunday-School  library  such 
works  would  be  especially  helpful  in  vitaliz- 
ing the  characters  of  early  Church  history,  and 
would  make  saints  and  martyrs  and  fathers 
companionable  to  the  youth  of  to-day. 


64        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

To  sum  up  the  matter  briefly,  then,  the 
books  in  a  Sunday-School  library  must  be 
such  as  a  child  will  read.  To  have  a  boy 
condemn  a  book  as  "stuffy,"  or  "pious,"  is 
enough  to  kill  his  interest  for  many  years 
in  the  subject  of  which  it  treats.  So  our  books 
on  missions,  on  Church  history,  on  general 
morals,  on  everyday  Christian  living,  must 
conform  to  the  standard  established  by 
childhood,  if  they  are  to  serve  any  useful 
moral  purpose. 

The  question  is  often  asked,  Is  it  neces- 
sary to  have  a  Sunday-School  library  if  there 
is  a  good  town  library  ?  In  schools  composed 
of  prosperous  families  the  need  may  not  be 
so  great ;  but  among  the  poorer  classes  it  is 
imperative.  For  these  lack  the  initiative  to 
procure  library  cards,  and  often  the  carfare  to 
and  from  the  library  is  an  important  item  in 
the  family  expenditures.  But  even  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances  the  need  ex- 
ists. A  library  supplies  a  part  of  the  educa- 
tion which  the  Church  is  providing  for  the 
child;  by  means  of  its  well-chosen  books 
she  strives  to  impress  upon  the  child  the 


CHILD  AND  HIS  BOOK       65 

lessons  taught  in  class;  and  she  seeks  to 
provide  tor  that  soul-culture,  which  is  our 
chief  concern,  by  furnishing  books  that  shall 
help,  not  hurt,  the  tender  and  impressionable 
mind.  Associational  values  are  large  in  chil- 
dren, and  to  a  child  who  loves  his  Sunday- 
School,  the  books  from  its  library  bring  a 
special  message. 

There  is,  moreover,  the  further  fact  to  be 
considered,  that  in  many  of  the  poorer 
families  the  Sunday-School  book  furnishes 
reading  for  the  whole  family. 

This  brings  us  to  another  phase  of  the 
question,  namely,  the  cooperation  of  the 
home;  the  child  is  imitative,  and  is  apt  to 
affect  the  reading  of  his  elders.  And  thus  it 
happens  that  "What  do  the  grown-ups 
read?"  becomes  a  vital  question.  For  read- 
ing affects  the  soul-culture  of  the  adult 
almost  as  much  as  it  does  that  of  the  child. 
We  are  discriminating  about  the  lectures 
we  hear,  and  the  plays  that  we  attend,  and 
exceedingly  critical  about  the  sermons  to 
which  we  listen.  Are  we  careful  enough 
about  what  we  read,  and  its  effect  upon  us? 


6S        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

It  seems  a  simple  rule  that  we  should  ask 
ourselves  what  we  expect  to  gain  from  our 
reading.  If  one  would  grow  wise,  he  reads 
wise  books;  if  he  wishes  to  become  expert 
in  any  branch  of  knowledge,  he  confines  his 
reading  to  technical  books.  Ifwe  take  our 
Christian  life  seriously,  should  we  not  give 
attention  to  such  reading  as  shall  make  us 
and  our  children  grow  "  in  wisdom  and  in 
favor  with  God  and  man  "  ?  For  from  books 
we  absorb  into  our  thinking  the  thoughts  of 
others,  and  "  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart, 
so  is  he." 


VI 

ON   TELLING   BIBLE  STORIES 

THE  persistent  survival  of  certain  traits 
of  human  nature,  through  all  the 
changing  and  advancing  centuries,  is  a  con- 
tinual source  of  amazement.  Grown  men 
gather  now  at  club  or  banquet,  in  smok- 
ing-car or  country  store,  around  a  good  story- 
teller, just  as  eagerly  as  they  did  when  all 
knowledge  came  to  them  orally.  The  child 
of  to-day,  overwhelmed  as  he  is  by  children's 
books,  is  as  insistent  in  his  demands  for  a 
story  as  any  little  half-naked-savage  was  in 
times  gone  by.  Every  person,  be  he  parent, 
teacher,  friend,  or  relation,  who  comes  into 
close  personal  contact  with  a  little  child, 
must  expect  to  hear  the  request,  "Please 
tell  me  a  story";  and  unless  he  can  gratify 
the  wish,  he  may  expect  to  fall  in  the  scale 
of  the  child's  appreciation. 

The  story  is  such  a  universally  desired 
thing  that  teachers  of  all  ages  and  races 


68         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

have  used  it  as  a  means  for  conveying  truth 
in  palatable  form.  It  can  teach  history  in 
unforgettable  pictures ;  and  righteousness 
may  be  exalted,  and  virtue  become  triumph- 
ant, and  the  homely  abstract  virtues  be  em- 
phasized by  concrete  personification,  in  the 
tale  that  the  wise  story-teller  unfolds  to 
gratify  this  desire  of  his  hearers. 

To  meet  a  demand  so  full  of  opportunity 
and  so  certain  to  be  made  upon  each  of  us, 
requires  some  preparation  on  our  part;  for 
it  is  not  easy  for  every  one  to  tell  stories, 
since  the  inventive  faculty,  the  fluent  tongue, 
and  the  ability  to  catch  the  child's  point  of 
view  are  not  equally  bestowed  upon  us. 

Many  books  have  been  written  to  help 
people  who  desire  to  study  the  subject,  sug- 
gesting themes  and  methods.  It  should  be 
noted  that,  while  the  child  likes  any  story, 
one  that  is  a  "  true  story  "  is  his  especial  fa- 
vorite. This  requirement  is  easily  met  by 
the  stories  of  the  Bible ;  and  they  have  an 
additional  claim  upon  our  notice,  because,  as 
examples  of  the  short  story,  there  is  nothing 
in  any  literature  to  compare  with  the  short 


TELLING  BIBLE  STORIES    6g 

stories  of  the  Bible.  The  characters  are  so 
human,  the  recital  is  so  brief  and  dramatic, 
the  lesson  is  so  truly  pointed  that  they  serve 
their  high  moral  purpose  now,  as  well  as  they 
did  when  they  were  first  told  to  eager  lis- 
teners or  read  by  studious  youth.  Let  us 
attempt  to  analyze  the  art  of  these  old  story- 
tellers, and  try  to  catch  the  secret  of  their 
charm. 

These  stories  show  an  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  human  nature,  and  this  gives 
them  their  perennial  freshness ;  for  human 
nature  has  not  changed  much  in  the  long 
years  that  stretch  between  Abraham's  time 
and  ours:  its  great  moving  passions  and 
joys  and  sorrows  have  known  no  change, 
even  as  they  know  no  nationality.  And  so 
to  tell  these  stories  well,  we  must  put  into 
them  all  that  comprehension  of  human 
nature  which  experience  has  taught  us. 
We  must  analyze  the  motives  for  the  actions 
described,  and  point  out  their  inevitable 
moral  effect.  The  characters  must  be  real 
to  us,  or  they  can  never  walk  out  of  the  im- 
prisonment of  archaic  text  and  become  "real 


70        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

live  heroes"  for  the  children.  In  every  pos- 
sible way  we  must  vitalize  our  story  by  the 
use  of  imagination  based  upon  informa- 
tion. 

For  these  old  writers  knew  their  "local 
coloring,"  and  we  must  reproduce  it  by 
study.  Any  one  who  wishes  her  telling  of 
Bible  stories  to  reach  the  point  of  extreme 
usefulness  should  cultivate  a  thorough  ac- 
quaintance with  facts  about  the  history  of 
the  times,  the  geography  of  the  places,  and 
the  customs  of  the  countries  where  the  story 
is  laid.  This  knowledge  will  furnish  the 
proper  food  for  the  imagination. 

These  old  writers  used  an  abundance 
of  detail,  introduced  in  brief  sentences  of 
much  discernment.  They  indulged  in  a  re- 
iteration which  children  love,  as  it  gives  a 
sort  of  pendulum  effect  and  heightens  the 
interest  for  the  climax. 

One  is  impressed  by  the  fact  that  these 
writers  believed  their  stories  to  be  true,  and 
knew  that  they  had  a  distinct  value  histori- 
cally as  well  as  morally;  they  were  not  told 
merely  to  amuse.  They  had  a  purpose  in 


TELLING  BIBLE  STORIES     71 

telling  their  stories;  for  they  aimed  to 
show  "  the  third  and  fourth  generation " 
how  God  had  punished  and  rewarded, 
and  to  read  into  every  event  of  history  the 
moving  hand  of  Jehovah. 

To  tell  Bible  stories  well,  we  need  such 
a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  text  that 
we  can  put  the  story  into  our  own  language; 
although  it  is  possible  to  interest  quite 
young  children  in  the  stories  as  they  are 
read  from  the  Bible,  with  only  a  running 
word  of  explanation  here  and  there.  This, 
however,  depends  very  largely  upon  the 
reader.  Some  people,  in  reading  the  Bible 
aloud,  read  only  the  words  ;  others  read  the 
ideas  as  well,  and  then  the  story  makes  its 
own  appeal ;  for  the  comprehension  of  the 
reader  has  been  imparted  to  the  hearer. 

"Study  your  Bible  on  your  knees,"  ad- 
vised Mr.  Moody;  and  then,  we  would  add, 
go  to  the  libraries  and  study  about  it.  Learn 
what  the  spade  of  the  archseologist  has  found, 
and  what  the  skill  of  the  patient  linguistic 
scholar  has  deciphered  and  deduced  for  our 
benefit.  For  we  need  to  know  the  back- 


72         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

grounds  of  our  story,  and  these  are  ex- 
tremely interesting  as  they  have  been  dis- 
closed by  recent  discoveries  and  studies. 
We  cannot  tell  effectively  these  tales  of  a 
great  people  unless  their  history  is  real  to 
us.  For  a  people  in  whose  life  there  was 
a  forty  years'  desert  wandering,  and  into 
whose  soul  the  iron  of  a  seventy  years' 
Babylonian  Captivity  had  entered,  was  in- 
deed "peculiar."  A  knowledge  of  Great 
Babylon,  its  manners,  customs,  and  religion, 
and  the  kings  who  ruled  it  and  captive 
Israel,  is  necessary  if  we  would  understand 
the  Books  of  Esther  and  Daniel,  and  much 
of  the  Books  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  And 
the  Egypt  of  Moses,  Joseph,  and  Jeremiah 
is  surely  an  interesting  theme. 

This  knowledge  will  not  always  find 
definite  place  in  our  stories,  but  it  will  color 
them,  and  so  will  help  to  give  the  child  the 
correct  impression;  and  also,  by  putting  the 
stories  in  their  proper  historical  relation,  will 
emphasize  their  moral  lesson. 

For  it  is  our  privilege  to  show  the  children 
that  these  stories  belong  to  the  present  and 


TELLING  BIBLE  STORIES     73 

set  standards  for  their  own  conduct.  We 
must  definitely  relate  the  truths  that  they 
teach  to  the  vexations,  the  difficulties,  the 
temptations,  the  open  or  covert  infidelity, 
which  the  children  will  surely  meet  in  life.* 
For  these  boys  and  girls  are  not  going  to 
live  in  secluded  Christian  communities  like 
cloistered  brotherhoods  and  sisterhoods,  but 
out  in  the  thick  of  affairs,  in  a  world  bent 
on  other  things ;  in  the  midst  of  a  hurrying 
life  seeking  its  own  ends;  amid  comrades 
scoffing  or  lightly  contemptuous  of  anything 
serious  —  the  world  where  they  must  strug- 
gle to  follow  after  good. 

Unless  we  can  so  vitalize  the  stories  that 
they  shall  be  connected  with  the  child's  own 
life,  they  fail  in  our  hands.  A  little  fellow 
who  had  been  taught  Bible  stories  was  play- 
fully chasing  his  aunt,  and  gleefully  called 
out,  "  Look  out,  if  I  catch  you  I  '11  swallow 
you  like  the  whale  did  Jonah  !  "  He  was  too 
young  to  get  much  moral  value  from  the 
story  of  Jonah,  but  he  had  grasped  one  fact ; 
Jonah  was  a  real  man,  and  things  could 
happen  to  Jonah  just  as  they  did  to  him. 


74        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

Jonah  had  been  taken  from  the  pedestal  of 
observation  and  history,  and  made  a  part 
of  his  daily  life. 

Often  the  children  themselves  will  be  our 
best  teachers  in  the  story-telling  art.  The 
story  of  Moses  in  the  bulrushes  had  been 
told  to  a  little  four-year-old  girl  by  her  aunt ; 
and  afterwards,  to  see  how  much  the  child 
had  understood,  the  aunt  invited  the  little 
one  to  tell  her  the  story  back  again.  The 
recital  went  quite  smoothly  until  it  reached 
the  place  where  Miriam  offers  to  get  a  nurse 
for  the  baby,  when  Four-years-old  enlarged 
on  the  incident  in  this  fashion:  "Oh!  I'll 
get  you  a  nurse  for  the  baby;  she  '11  be  a 
nice,  pretty  nurse ;  and  she  '11  be  so  good  to 
the  baby."  Her  acquaintance  with  the  nursery 
had  given  her  a  standard  for  the  qualifica- 
tions of  a  nurse  that  had  escaped  her  aunt. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  child's  love  of 
detail,  we  may  mention  the  small  girl,  who, 
upon  reading  that  Job's  wealth  was  doubled 
after  his  trial,  took  great  pleasure  in  com- 
paring the  exact  number  of  sheep  and  camels 
and  asses  and  oxen  which  belonged  to  Job 


TELLING  BIBLE  STORIES     75 

before  and  after  that  event.  Properly  told, 
the  story  of  the  Tabernacle  and  of  the  build- 
ing of  Solomon's  Temple  will  fascinate  chil- 
dren; while  the  story  of  Esther,  with  its 
wealth  of  suggested  detail,  is  a  treasure 
mine. 

It  is  a  matter  of  importance  that  we,  like 
the  Bible  writers,  believe  the  stories  which 
we  tell  to  the  children ;  for  these  keen  young 
people  will  know,  from  our  tones  and  un- 
conscious attitude  toward  the  story,  whether 
we  believe  it  or  not. 

The  fact  of  miracles  troubles  some  people 
in  accepting  the  stories  of  the  Bible,  and 
consequently  in  relating  them.  In  the  light 
of  the  scientific  attitude  of  to-day,  that  should 
no  longer  trouble  any  one.  There  is  not  a 
miracle  recorded  in  the  Bible  that  is  more 
incredible  to  us  than  some  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  to-day  would  have  seemed  to  peo- 
ple a  hundred  years  ago.  Could  the  men  of 
Marlborough's  time  have  been  told  of  battles 
in  the  air  fought  wath  machine  guns,  of  sub- 
marine warfare,  of  smokeless  powder,  and 
of  the  deadly  achievements  of  liquid  fire  and 


76         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

poisonous  gas  on  battle-fields  and  in  trenches, 
it  would  have  staggered  their  credulity.  Or 
had  they  been  told  of  sending  the  human 
voice  over  forty-six  hundred  miles  from  New 
York  to  Hawaii;  or  of  sending  pictures  by 
electricity,  they  would  have  been  skeptically 
amazed.  Science  now  concedes  that  miracles 
are  possible,  and  that  we  may  not  yet  have 
discovered  the  laws  which  underlie  them. 
We  no  longer  think  that  we  have  penetrated 
all  the  secrets  of  the  universe,  or  that  all  the 
laws  of  creation  are  scheduled  in  our  text- 
books. Such  being  the  case,  it  seems  reason- 
able to  accept  the  statements  of  the  old  writ- 
ers, and  wait  for  fuller  knowledge  for  the 
explanation.  The  age  of  science  is  ushering 
in  the  age  of  faith;  and  the  conquest  or 
utilization  of  the  invisible  universe  makes 
easy  the  belief  in  the  unseen  God. 

Here  the  little  child  may  well  lead  us,  for 
to  him  miracle  is  always  possible,  since  all 
life  is  for  him  the  progressive  unfolding  of 
mysteries. 

The  telling  of  Bible  stories  is  therefore  an 
unique  art.  It  is  not  the  mere  art  of  amusing 


TELLING  BIBLE  STORIES     77 

the  child,  nqr  the  mere  quieting  of  his  de- 
mands; it  is  not  confined  even  to  the  stim- 
ulating of  his  imagination,  nor  the  setting 
before  him  of  inspiring  models  of  the  virtues, 
and  warning  personifications  of  the  vices. 
But  with  all  these  there  goes  a  deeper  result. 
Only  these  stories  link  him  with  the  other 
world,  with  the  great  supreme  powers,  and 
put  his  growing  soul  into  its  correct  relation 
with  its  Creator.  Hence  these  stories  teach 
religion,  for  that,  in  its  simplest  form,  is  the 
binding  of  the  soul  to  God. 

All  knowledge  must  be  preceded  by  in- 
terest, say  the  psychologists;  and  so  these 
wonderful  stories  furnish  us  with  the  correct 
and  incomparable  means  for  imparting  truth. 

To  the  conscientious  teller  of  Bible  stories 
there  comes  a  great  reward.  For  the  prep- 
aration of  mind  and  spirit,  by  study  and 
prayer,  brings  an  increased  sense  of  the 
wholeness  of  that  brief  chronicle  of  man's 
long  search  after  God  and  of  the  fullness  of 
the  revelation  made  to  him.  Equipped  with 
this  knowledge,  the  story-teller  will  be  en- 
abled to  explain  great  doctrines  naturally 


78         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

and  simply.  Full  of  information,  not  only 
about  each  story,  but  of  the  great  subject  in 
all  its  bearings,  the  teaching  will  hold  the 
attention,  and  the  dealings  of  the  Spirit  will 
become  understood  in  their  relations  to  pro- 
saic everyday  conditions  and  individual 
needs. 

Our  own  faith  will  revive  and  grow,  and 
our  own  souls  will  be  fed  at  the  same  sources 
from  which  we  draw  for  the  child. 

"  He  taught  the  people  by  parables."  Is 
it  not  good  to  follow  in  his  steps? 


VII 

A   SUNDAY-SCHOOLTEACHER'S  BIOGRAPHY 

WE  learn  but  slowly  from  the  abstract 
statement  in  any  science,  we  need 
the  laboratory  of  experimentation.  The 
*'  thou  shalts  "  and  the  "  thou  shalt  nots  "  of 
teaching  make  but  small  impression  upon 
our  work,  unless  they  are  reinforced  and 
illustrated  by  examples  of  their  practical 
application.  It  is  this  fact  which  gives  value 
to  biography;  and  it  seems  fitting  in  these 
brief  papers  on  the  religious  education  of 
the  child  to  sketch  here  the  biography  of 
a  successful  teacher  of  the  last  generation. 
For  the  fundamental  qualifications  of  a 
teacher,  and  of  the  pupil,  have  not  changed 
much  with  the  passing  years;  and  the  story 
of  one  teacher's  preparation,  personality,  and 
methods  may  tend  to  stimulate  those  of  the 
present  time. 

There  are  lives  which  are  long,  but  whose 
biographies  are  expressed  in  the  one  word 


8o        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

—  Service.  Such  was  the  record  of  the  life 
of  the  subject  of  this  sketch.  Born  in  the 
South,  of  New  England  parents,  she  inher- 
ited the  deeply  religious  instincts  of  her 
Pilgrim  forefathers.  To  this  was  added  the 
moral  training  of  the  strictest  Puritan  type, 
with  its  fixed  notions  of  the  absolute  right 
and  wrong  in  human  conduct.  The  rigid- 
ness  of  this  training  was  modified  by  the 
genial,  social  influences  of  a  semi-tropical 
city  of  the  Far  South.  The  result  of  these 
combined  influences  was  a  woman  gracious 
and  tactful  in  her  intercourse  with  others; 
possessed  of  an  earnest  sense  of  duty  toward 
society,  and  a  deep  interest  in  humanity; 
keenly  intellectual,  and  enthusiastically  de- 
voted to  the  cause  of  helping  her  fellow-men 
to  better  and  more  righteous  living. 

She  used  to  recall  the  fact  that  she  at- 
tended missionary  meetings  with  her  mother 
when  she  was  only  six  years  old;  and  she 
remembered  quite  well  how  interested  she 
became  in  China,  the  mission  for  which  the 
good  ladies  were  working. 

She  was  taken  to  Sunday-School  at  the 


A  BIOGRAPHY  8i 

earliest  age  allowable  in  a  time  which  knew 
nothing  of  kindergarten  methods  in  Sunday- 
Schools.  In  the  middle  decades  of  the  last 
century  no  lesson  papers  were  set  forth  for 
''Sabbath-Schools,"  with  brief  portions  of 
Scripture  as  a  lesson,  amply  provided  with 
notes  and  illustrations,  and  with  an  unre- 
lated Golden  Text  to  be  memorized.  Nor 
did  the  children  make  picture-books  for  the 
lesson,  or  use  any  of  the  delightful  aids  that 
now  make  the  teacher's  work  easy.  Then 
the  children  were  expected  to  memorize 
whole  chapters  of  the  Bible,  and  catechism 
was  a  very  important  part  of  every  Sab- 
bath's lesson. 

The  influence  of  the  New  England  Primer 
was  still  potent,  and  the  earliest  catechism 
taught  was  one  which  inquired,  *'  Who  was 
the  most  patient  man?  Job."  "Who  was 
the  meekest  man?  Moses."  "Who  was 
the  man  after  God's  own  heart?  David." 
In  this  way  the  salient  facts  about  the  chief 
characters  of  Bible  history  were  taught. 

At  the  age  of  sixteen  she  began  teaching 
in  the  Sunday-School ;  and  her  active  work 


82         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

as  a  teacher  lasted  until  her  seventieth  year. 
She  saw  children's  children  among  her  pu- 
pils. Very  early  in  her  teaching  she  special- 
ized as  a  teacher  of  little  children,  and 
assumed  charge  of  the  Primary  Department, 
the  Infant  School  as  it  was  then  called.  But 
her  scholars  carried  the  memory  of  her  teach- 
ing and  influence  through  life,  and  sent  their 
children  to  be  under  her  care,  that  their 
lives  too  might  have  the  goodly  moulding 
influence  of  the  same  great  and  well-loved 
teacher. 

For  she  was  one  of  the  ^'  born  teachers  " ; 
possessed  of  an  eager  desire  to  know,  that 
was  second  only  to  her  yearning  to  impart, 
she  seemed  to  have  an  instinctive  compre- 
hension of  the  needs  of  the  children  and  their 
ability  to  understand ;  and  she  knew  how  to 
touch  the  springs  of  their  affections  and  to 
arouse  their  interest.  Her  normal-school 
training  had  been  her  own  full  nursery ;  but 
long  before  her  own  nestlings  came,  her 
usefulness  was  great. 

She  was  a  skilled  musician,  and  played 
the  organ  as  well  as  taught  the  children. 


A  BIOGRAPHY  83 

And  she  taught  them  so  to  appreciate  the 
words  and  follow  the  tune  that  they  were 
happy  to  be  consciously  among  those  who 
were  "  singing  and  making  melody  with 
[their]  heart  to  the  Lord."  They  loved  the 
hymns  of  the  Sunday-School,  and  well  they 
might;  for  the  entire  output  of  Sunday- 
School  music  was  examined  that  she  might 
cull  the  choicest  hymns  for  the  use  of  her 
class.  These  hymns  were  stenciled  on  large 
sheets,  so  that  no  one  book  furnished  all  the 
music,  and  every  one  could  sing. 

Her  great  natural  ability  as  a  teller  of 
stories  she  consecrated  to  her  work;  and 
long  before  there  were  any  illustrations 
available  for  Sunday-Schools,  her  scholars 
knew  and  loved  the  Good  Shepherd.  So 
vividly  was  the  story  told  that  every  child 
who  heard  it  pictured  to  himself  how  ten- 
derly the  Good  Shepherd  looked  upon  his 
flock ;  and  as  he  called  himself  "  Jesus'  lit- 
tle lamb  "  felt  drawn  into  a  sweet  personal 
relation  with  the  friend  who  was  God. 

The  governing  principle  of  her  life  was 
love;  and  in  her  teaching  she  stressed  the 


84        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

obligations  of  love  rather  than  the  fiat  of 
authority;  and  she  taught  her  scholars  to 
love  God,  and  to  obey  Him  because  they 
loved  Him.  Such  love  of  God  can  only  be 
taught  by  one  ardent  soul  to  another,  for 
faith  is  transmitted  by  contagion. 

She  led  her  scholars  where  she  would,  so 
great  was  their  attachment  to  her.  They 
were  interested  in  missions  because  she  was; 
and  made  their  offerings  cheerfully,  because 
they  knew  and  appreciated  that  so  they 
were  helping  other  children  to  learn  about 
the  Blessed  Jesus  who  loved  all  little  chil- 
dren. 

She  taught  them  also  the  comfort  and 
beauty  of  prayer ;  it  was  just  talking  with 
God,  the  dear  Saviour  who  loved  them,  who 
was  everywhere,  and  who  could  help  them. 
And  nothing  was  too  small  for  them  to  talk 
to  Him  about ;  no  trouble  so  great  but  that 
He  could  help. 

One  summer  she  met  in  the  country  a 
little  four-year-old  boy  who  had  never  been 
taught  to  pray.  As  they  were  walking  to- 
gether one  evening,  he  confided  to  her  his 


A  BIOGRAPHY  85 

fear  of  being  alone  in  the  attic,  where  he 
went  to  bed  before  his  mother  came  up  for 
the  night.  She  told  him  about  God's  care 
of  him,  and  that  he  need  only  say  at  night, 
"  God,  please  take  care  of  me."  He  stopped 
short  in  the  fields  where  they  were  walking, 
and  in  the  twilight  lifted  his  little  face  to 
the  sky  and  said  trustfully,  "  O  God,  please 
take  care  of  me  to-night,  and  don't  let  any- 
thing hurt  me  when  I  'm  alone  in  the  attic" : 
and  then,  quite  care-free  and  happy,  went 
home  to  bed.  Was  it  any  wonder  that  in 
later  years,  three  Sunday-School  superin- 
tendents testified  that  they  owed  their  relig- 
ious inclination  and  training  to  the  years  in 
the  Infant  Room  ? 

Her  teaching  was  based  upon  the  Bible, 
and  a  rule  of  life  or  a  principle  of  action 
must  be  derived  from  that  source  to  give  it 
authority  in  her  eyes.  Her  broadly  intelli- 
gent and  reverent  mind  took  in  the  newer 
explanations  of  scholarly  criticism  and  used 
them  constructively;  it  was  still  God  who 
made  the  world,  whether  He  took  six  days 
or  six  epochs  for  creation. 


86        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

The  close  of  the  Civil  War  found  many 
churches  as  well  as  homes  impoverished  and 
crippled.  To  her  husband,  a  prominent  busi- 
ness man  having  extensive  connections 
throughout  the  State  of  Georgia,  came 
many  appeals  for  aid.  One  church  had  lost 
its  communion  service,  another  needed 
hymn  books ;  —  and  so  the  stories  ran.  As 
soon  as  she  heard  these  tales,  she  sent  letters 
of  inquiry  concerning  the  Sunday-Schools. 
Here  was  another  tale  of  an  agency  for 
good  so  demoralized  that  it  was  almost  out 
of  existence.  But  still  the  children  were 
there ;  women,  if  not  men,  could  be  found 
for  teachers ;  and  something  must  be  done. 
The  South  was  ruined  financially ;  her  social 
organization  was  in  chaos ;  her  political  for- 
tunes in  the  hands  of  rascally  "carpet-bag- 
gers," or  ignorant  experimenters.  If  she  lost 
her  grasp  on  religion,  or  failed  to  train  the 
rising  generation  aright,  what  was  her  future 
to  be  ?  These  country  schools  had  no  money 
to  pay  for  Bibles  or  hymn  books  or  papers 
or  catechisms:  how  could  they  be  taught? 
These  were  the  insistent  questions  which 


A  BIOGRAPHY  87 

came  before  her  clear,  practical,  and  conse- 
crated brain  for  answer. 
,  And  the  answer  to  the  questions  came. 
She  devised  a  card  about  four  and  a  half  by- 
six  inches  in  size,  on  one  side  of  which  the 
words  and  music  of  a  hymn  were  printed ; 
on  the  obverse  there  was  printed  a  portion 
of  Scripture,  with  questions  about  it ;  and 
then  a  few  questions  from  the  catechism. 

It  was  not  a  simple  matter  to  publish 
these  cards,  for  the  permission  of  publishers 
to  reprint  hymns  had  to  be  obtained ;  and 
printing  music  was  more  troublesome  and 
expensive  then  than  it  is  now.  But  no  diffi- 
culty was  too  great  for  her  earnest  zeal  and 
practical  management.  The  cost  of  printing 
and  distribution  was  generously  assumed  by 
her  husband,  and  so  for  three  years,  at  a  cost 
of  five  hundred  dollars  a  year,  eight  hundred 
of  these  cards  were  sent  out,  each  month,  to 
the  Sunday-Schools  in  the  destitute  country 
districts  of  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Florida,  and  Alabama.  The  num- 
ber sent  varied  from  ten  to  twenty,  accord- 
ing to  the  size  of  the  school.  This  service 


88         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

of  help  was  deeply  appreciated  by  the  faith- 
ful workers  in  the  schools;  and  her  family 
treasure  many  grateful  letters  from  ministers 
and  teachers.  At  the  end  of  three  years 
conditions  had  become  normal,  and  the 
Sunday-Schools  were  able  to  provide  for 
themselves. 

All  this  time  she  was  not  only  conduct- 
ing the  Infant  Class  of  her  own  Sunday- 
School,  but  was  efficiently  cooperating  with 
the  work  of  the  whole  school.  On  her  trips 
to  the  North,  every  summer,  she  visited  Sun- 
day-Schools to  gather  new  ideas  as  to  teach- 
ing and  equipment.  These  she  carried  back 
to  the  work  at  home ;  and  so  much  was  her 
judgment  trusted  that  they  were  at  once  in- 
troduced. 

Life  brought  many  changes  after  the 
death  of  her  husband,  and  sorrow  followed 
sorrow ;  but  her  strong  faith  and  courageous 
heart  withstood  the  shocks  and  she  found  a 
solace  for  grief  in  wider  plans  for  useful- 
ness. To  her  it  seemed  that  at  least  once  a 
year  a  great  central  Bible  truth  should  be 
emphasized  in  the  Sunday-School.  And  so 


A  BIOGRAPHY  89 

she  proposed  that  the  anniversary  of  the 
founding  of  the  Sunday-School  should  be 
especially  observed  in  this  way. 

For  these  occasions  she  arranged  an  exer- 
cise in  which  the  words  of  the  great  central 
truth  were  formed  by  floral  letters  brought 
by  the  several  classes,  and  placed  on  a  frame- 
work of  gray  moss,  bordered  lavishly  with 
flowers.  As  each  class  brought  its  letter,  it 
recited  a  Bible  verse  which  bore  on  the  main 
theme.  The  lesson  was  emphasized  by  ap- 
propriate hymns  and  an  address  which 
summed  up  the  whole  exercise.  These  oc- 
casions drew  immense  audiences,  so  that 
the  lesson  was  widely  taught.  Later  the  cus- 
tom was  adopted  by  many  of  the  schools 
of  the  city. 

Wherever  this  teacher  lived,  she  taught 
the  children.  As  soon  as  her  residence  was 
fixed  in  a  place,  if  only  for  the  winter,  she 
offered  her  services  in  the  Sunday-School. 
She  spent  one  year  in  a  German  city,  but 
even  here  her  activities  were  continued.  For 
her  heart  was  concerned  for  the  spiritual  wel- 
fare of  the  little  English  and  American  chil- 


90        A  CHILD^S  RELIGION 

dren,  expatriated  by  their  parents'  love  of  art, 
travel,  or  business,  who  were  without  any 
Sunday-School  privileges  or  instruction. 

So  she  opened  her  own  apartment  every 
Sunday  afternoon,  and  taught  all  the  chil- 
dren whose  parents  would  bring  or  send 
them  to  her.  It  never  occurred  to  her,  as  it 
seems  to  do  to  some  people,  that  a  residence 
abroad  absolved  her  from  the  obligations  of 
Christian  duty.  Here  were  little  children  for 
whom  nothing  was  being  done;  that  consti- 
tuted both  her  call  and  her  opportunity:  and 
the  answered  call  brought  its  own  rich  re- 
ward. 

So  the  years  passed ;  busy  years,  useful  in 
many  lines  of  activities,  but  always  her  Sun- 
day-School was  her  largest  interest. 

At  seventy,  the  circumstances  of  life  took 
her  away  from  her  home  city,  and  she  was 
then  physically  unequal  to  undertaking 
work  in  a  new  place.  Henceforth  her  teach- 
ing was  confined  to  the  children  whom  she 
met  or  gathered  around  her,  the  friends  of 
her  grandchildren.  And  children  were  al- 
ways drawn  to  her ;  for  they  felt  the  deep 


A  BIOGRAPHY  91 

love  that  was  flowing  out  to  them,  and  their 
reciprocal  affection  was  her  great  comfort. 

As  years  and  infirmities  increased,  this 
became  more  and  more  precious;  and  even 
at  the  last,  when  she  was  crippled  in  speech 
and  motion  by  paralysis,  little  children 
would  run  to  help  her  tottering  steps,  and  sit 
and  talk  to  her,  and  pay  her  those  loving  little 
attentions  which  children  know  how  to  pay. 

"  Her  brave  and  faithful  love  for  God 
and  her  fellowmen,"  as  one  has  described 
hers,  had  borne  fruit  in  many  directions. 
Benevolent  aid  societies,  industrial  homes, 
orphan  asylums,  homes  for  newsboys  and 
working  girls,  Indian  associations  and  mis- 
sionary societies  as  well  as  Sunday-Schools, 
had  all  felt  the  efficiency  of  her  connection 
with  them.  Yet  at  the  very  last,  when  the 
shadows  of  approaching  change  were  gath- 
ering close  and  speech  was  difficult,  she 
turned  to  her  daughter  and  said,  "  The 
longer  I  live,  the  more  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  only  thing  worth  while  is  to  work  for 
souls;  and  if  God  spares  my  life,  I  shall  try 
to  do  more  of  it." 


92         A  CHILD^S  RELIGION 

The  call  to  the  larger  life  came  soon  after; 
and  with  a  murmured,  "  Come,  Lord,"  the 
teacher  of  little  children  went  into  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Great  Teacher  who  had  de- 
clared that  "  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." 


VIII 

THE   CHILDLIKE   TEACHER 

IT  is  as  the  Great  Teacher  that  we  who 
are  teaching  like  to  think  of  our  Blessed 
Lord;  for  it  implies  not  only  that  he  is  our 
model,  but  it  gives  us  a  sense  of  helpful 
sympathy  with  our  work.  "  He  taught  the 
people";  and  surely  he  knew  the  weariness 
of  unresponsiveness  to  his  message,  the  dis- 
heartening that  came  from  finding  that  his 
pupils  followed  Him  " for  loaves  and  fishes" 
and  miracles,  even  as  ours  may  sometimes 
come  for  material  benefits.  He  knew»  too, 
the  sadness  of  having  his  pupils  turn  out 
badly;  was  not  Judas  a  traitor?  And  his 
was  also  that  more  joyful  experience,  the 
true  compensation  of  the  teacher,  of  know- 
ing that  the  whole  current  of  a  man's  life  had 
been  changed  by  his  teaching,  and  that  his 
pupils  were  teachers  in  their  turn. 

And  yet  He  who  said,  "  Go  ye,  and  teach 
all  nations,"  said  also,  "Except  ye  become 


94        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

as  little  children,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  This  must 
surely  have  implied  that  even  in  our  teaching 
we  could  learn  from  the  child,  and  that  the 
ideal  teacher  was  the  childlike  teacher.  Can 
this  be  so  —  that  we  grown  men  and  women 
must  approach  our  task  of  high  privilege  as 
a  child  would?  We  are  accustomed  to  think 
of  the  child  as  a  pet,  or  perhaps  a  splendid 
possibility  entrusted  to  our  care;  but  to  see 
the  child  as  a  model  for  teachers  is  to  ap- 
proach him  from  a  new  viewpoint. 

What,  then,  is  the  child  that  we  may  learn 
from  him? 

The  most  prominent  characteristic  of  a 
child  is  that  he  is  ever  learning,  ever  increas- 
ing his  knowledge  of  himself,  of  life,  of  facts 
of  all  sorts.  The  baby  grasping  at  the  sun- 
beam becomes  the  man  who  grasps  at  the 
difficult  and  unachieved  in  the  material  uni- 
verse. The  child  playing  with  his  own  fingers 
and  toes  to  establish  his  identity  becomes 
later  the  keen  psychologist  or  the  skillful 
biologist  who  can  trace  the  microscopic  germ 
through  a  dozen  transformations.   The  re- 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER     95 

former  of  to-day  was  the  infant  destroyer  of 
the  established  in  the  nursery  of  yesterday; 
and  the  curious  and  sometimes  troublesome 
prying  of  the  child  develops  into  the  patient 
investigation  of  the  scientist,  who  is  trying 
to  read  the  thoughts  of  God  after  Him  as 
they  are  written  in  the  book  of  nature.  For 
the  child  earnestly  desires  to  know;  and  his 
mental  attitude,  often  his  spoken  one,  is  that 
of  interrogating  the  universe. 

Another  marked  trait  of  the  child  is  his 
desire  to  impart  knowledge.  As  fast  as  he 
learns  anything,  he  wants  to  teach  it  to  some 
one  else ;  if  there  are  younger  children  in  his 
home,  they  are  his  pupils ;  if  not,  he  must 
tell  his  elders;  for  knowledge  is  not  fully 
his  until  he  has  shared  its  joy  with  others. 
This  joy  of  conscious  gain  in  knowledge 
which  the  child  has  is  an  enviable  posses- 
sion, and  one  that  only  constant  advance  in 
knowledge  can  give  us. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  also  that  when  a 
child  is  telling  what  he  has  learned,  he  uses 
his  own  words ;  for  he  assimilates  his  knowl- 
edge, it  becomes  a  part  of  his  mind,  and 


96        A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

then  he  is  ready  to  give  it  to  others.  And 
because  of  this  perfect  assimilation  he  can 
tell  his  story  vividly,  enthusiastically,  and 
in  such  fashion  that  his  little  mates  will 
understand  it.  For  this  reason  a  child  learns 
easily  from  another  child;  for  he  receives 
only  the  knowledge  that  the  other  child  has 
perfectly  comprehended. 

If  our  words  are  to  make  an  impression, 
therefore,  we  must  not  only  know  the  pro- 
cesses of  the  child  mind,  and  approach  our 
subject  sympathetically  from  the  child's  point 
of  view,  but  must  teach  from  the  fullness 
of  perfectly  assimilated  knowledge.  No  mere 
repetition  of  phrases,  however  beautiful,  will 
give  us  this  power:  when  the  truths  that  we 
would  teach  have  become  a  part  of  our  own 
thinking,  we  shall  teach  them  simply,  faith- 
fully, and  thus  convincingly.  When  the 
great  doctrines  have  been  realized  in  our 
living,  they  will  not  be  difficult  to  explain 
to  the  child;  for  instead  of  theological  state- 
ments we  shall  give  him  living  truth. 

Even  from  a  child's  conversation  we  may 
philosophically  draw  helpful  suggestions  as 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER     97 

to  the  topics  which  we  may  use  in  our 
teaching.  His  conversation  is  made  up  of 
his  knowledge  and  observations  of  the  world; 
and  all  knowledge  and  all  facts  he  relates  to 
himself.  If  he  is  telling  of  historical  exploits 
he  begins,  "  Once  there  was  a  man " ;  and 
because  the  hero  was  a  man,  he  can  become, 
and  has  become,  a  part  of  the  child's  life  and 
world,  although  many  centuries  may  have 
elapsed  since  the  exploit. 

The  great  object  of  our  teaching  should 
be  to  take  the  common  events  of  everyday 
life,  as  the  child  does,  and  transfuse  them 
with  divinity.  This  is  the  method  of  all  the 
great  teachers  of  the  Bible  itself 

Look  through  the  writings  of  the  prophets, 
and  observe  the  commonplaceness  of  many 
of  their  suggestions  and  similes.  The  washer- 
woman at  her  tub,  the  ox  and  his  master, 
the  ass  and  his  crib,  the  potter  at  his  wheel ; 
the  builder,  the  carver,  the  refiner  at  his  fur- 
nace, the  woodcutter,  the  ploughman  at  his 
toil,  the  sheep-shearer  as  well  as  the  shep- 
herd ;  the  lonely  watcher  in  the  garden  of 
cucumbers,  the  weaver  at  his  loom,  the  mes- 


98         A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

senger,  —  each  in  his  accustomed  task  fur- 
nished a  reference  or  a  suggestion  for  the 
preacher:  and  the  poet  Isaiah  does  not 
despise  even  the  homely  illustration  of  the 
bed  that  was  too  short,  and  the  covering 
that  was  too  narrow,  for  comfort.  (Isaiah 
28:20.) 

From  Olympic  races  and  gladiatorial  com- 
bats St  Paul  drew  vivid  comparisons  of  the 
race  that  is  "  set  before  us  "  and  of  the  good 
fight  that  we  must  fight;  and  from  the  Ro- 
man soldier  who  guarded  him,  he  drew  the 
picture  of  the  armor  of  the  Christian  in  his 
warfare  against  the  powers  of  evil.  To-day, 
gladiatorial  combats  have  given  way  to  base- 
ball and  football  games;  and  lessons  of  self- 
control,  of  calmness,  can  be  more  effectively 
presented,  if  illustrations  taken  from  these 
contests  are  used,  than  if  we  try  to  impress 
alone  the  lesson,  "  he  that  ruleth  his  spirit 
[is  better]  than  he  that  taketh  a  city." 
(Proverbs  19:  15.) 

Our  Lord  continued  the  same  sort  of 
teaching,  and  drew  his  parables  from  the 
woman  with  a  broom  distractedly  seeking  a 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER     99 

lost  coin,  and  the  thrifty  placing  of  the  one 
candle  that  it  might  give  the  utmost  light; 
the  pearl  merchant  and  the  fisherman,  each 
at  his  task.  He  took  note  of  the  difference 
in  the  foundations  of  houses,  of  successful 
and  unsuccessful  business  ventures,  of  real 
estate  transactions ;  of  faithful  servants  and 
wasteful  retainers.  We  find  Him  discussing 
in  his  talks  such  secular  subjects  as  taxation, 
hospitality,  and  all  sorts  of  social  questions. 
He  discussed  the  current  opinions  of  the 
day,  and  proved  their  incorrectness.  He 
took  the  common  sayings  of  the  people, 
"Ye  say  the  sky  is  red  ...  ye  can  discern 
the  face  of  the  sky,"  using  their  vernacular, 
and  pointed  his  lessons  with  them. 

From  the  daily  life  of  the  people  He 
drew  illustrations ;  He  took  into  his  teach- 
ing the  common  life  of  man,  with  its  phases 
of  birth,  marriage,  illness,  and  death ;  shad- 
owed as  it  is  by  prodigal  sons  and  erring 
daughters ;  took  it  with  its  ordinary  occu- 
pations and  experiences,  and  lifted  it  into 
divine  significance. 

The  life  of  to-day  offers  to  us  a  wealth 


loo      A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

of  illustrative  material  unknown  to  earlier 
times;  the  air-ship,  the  talking  motion  pic- 
tures, the  gyroscope,  all  the  mechanical 
marvels  that  mark  our  time,  together  with 
all  the  wizardry  of  chemistry  and  the  newly 
discovered  wonders  of  the  processes  of  life, 
are  ours  to  use. 

Some  years  ago,  Henry  Drummond's 
great  book,  "  Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual 
World,"  stirred  thinking  souls  profoundly ; 
to-day,  our  task  is  to  show  the  child  the 
spiritual  values  of  his  everyday  life,  the  spir- 
itual law  in  the  natural  world.  Let  us  not  fear 
to  use  these  things  in  our  teaching;  let  us  not 
put  the  vi^orld  into  two  sections,  labeled  re- 
spectively "sacred"  and  "secular,"  which 
must  be  always  separated.  There  is  but  one 
universe  of  men,  one  Creator;  it  is  all  his 
world.  Too  long  have  we  kept  our  sacred 
things  apart,  kept  religion  and  our  occupa- 
tions on  a  separate  plane.  The  salvation  of 
the  future,  the  hope  of  society,  lies  in  unit- 
ing the  sacred  and  secular,  in  acknowledg- 
ing the  universal  sovereignty  of  God,  not 
his  kingship  over  merely  a  small  province 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHE&    loi 

in  the  lives  of  men.  The  Jewish  nation  of 
old  even  went  to  war  feeling  that  Jehovah 
was  with  them.  To  be  able  to  find  God  in 
human  affairs,  in  the  games  and  lives  and 
interests  of  children,  —  even  as  in  nations, 
—  is  to  make  the  Incarnation  a  living  real- 
ity for  the  child,  a  doctrine  of  inspiration. 
No  life  that  feels  God  in  it  so  intimately 
can  ever  become  sordid. 

There  is  another  lesson  that  we  may  learn 
from  the  child,  and  that  is  how  to  pray;  for 
the  child  has  surely  mastered  the  art  of  ask- 
ing. For  he  asks  definitely  for  what  he  wants ; 
there  is  no  vagueness  in  the  expression  of 
his  desires,  no  lack  of  fullness  in  his  peti- 
tions. He  asks  earnestly  for  the  things  that 
he  desires  from  his  parents,  confident  of  their 
ability  to  supply  his  wants,  believing  that 
it  needs  only  his  request  to  make  these 
things  his ;  for  he  is  assured  that  the  power 
which  he  petitions  is  a  loving  one,  who  will 
withhold  no  good  thing  from  him  who  asks 
trustingly.  This  is  the  "  assurance  of  faith  " 
which  the  saints  possess ;  and  it  is  this  calm 
trust  that  He  can^  He  willy  because  He  loves^ 


102       A  CHlLt)*S  RELIGION 

that  must  underlie  all  our  prayers,  if  we 
hope  to  "  grasp  with  firmer  hand  [the]  eternal 
grace  "  which  shall  fit  us  to  teach  the  child 
that  he  may  pray  to  his  heavenly  Father  in 
such  fashion  as  he  petitions  his  earthly  par- 
ents. 

From  yet  another  point  of  view  we  find 
the  child  suggestive ;  for  the  law,  the  most 
prominent  characteristic  of  the  child  is 
growth.  The  watchwords  of  his  education 
are,  "I  must  be,  I  must  do,  I  must  be- 
come*'; and  his  growth  must  evince  itself 
along  these  three  lines  of  character,  action, 
and  aspiration.  As  teachers  we  must  grow, 
and  our  growth  also  must  show  in  increased 
achievement,  more  developed  character,  and 
larger  aspiration.  Let  us  examine  ourselves 
along  these  three  lines ;  for  in  order  to  meas- 
ure growth,  we  must  have  a  definite  starting- 
point  of  comparison. 

Why  should  we  know  ourselves?  The 
message  may  be  true  and  be  adapted  to  the 
child,  but  does  the  personality  of  the  teacher 
count  for  naught?  Were  this  true  the  in- 
struction might  be  given  by  a  graphophone 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER    103 

to  hundreds  at  once,  and  in  many  places  at 
the  same  time.  St.  Paul  tells  the  Thessalo- 
nians  that  ''  we  were  well  pleased  to  impart 
unto  you,  not  the  gospel  of  God  only,  but 
also  our  own  souls"  (1  Thess.  2:9);  and 
a  distinguished  educator  (Dr.  Flavel  L. 
Luther,  of  Trinity  College)  sums  up  the 
situation  thus :  "  There  must  be  put  into 
these  young  souls  from  the  lips  and  exam- 
ples of  those  who  teach  them  a  great  yearn- 
ing for  righteousness,  a  complete  consecra- 
tion to  the  service  of  God,  a  full  curriculum 
of  instruction  unto  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

"  On  the  East  Side  of  New  York,"  says 
Mary  Antin,  "teacher  is  a  being  adored. 
Said  a  bedraggled  Jewish  mother  to  her 
little  boy  who  had  affronted  his  teacher, 
'Don't  you  know  that  teachers  is  holy?' " 

A  skilled  workman  knows  his  tools;  and 
since  the  personality  of  the  teacher  is  part 
of  his  equipment,  evidently  our  first  duty 
is  to  know  ourselves. 

Introspection  is  not  much  the  fashion 
nowadays;  most  of  us  think  of  it  as  belong- 
ing to  the  discipline  of  convents  and  early 


I04      A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

pietists.  But  we  surely  need  it.  Carried 
along  as  we  are  by  the  rush  of  events, 
caught  under  the  Wheel  of  Things,  our 
real  selves  impinged  on  all  sides  by  the 
Juxtaposition  of  other  personalities,  do  we 
not  need  to  extricate  ourselves  by  deliberate 
intention,  and  in  our  own  closets  to  exam- 
ine ourselves? 

What  coloring  shall  the  Great  Message 
take  as  it  passes  through  our  lips  and  lives 
to  our  classes?  Do  we  know  our  own 
faults,  our  own  propensities,  our  own  abil- 
ities ?  Are  we  conscious  of  our  own  preju- 
dices, the  likes  and  dislikes  which  may  affect 
our  teaching?  Then  there  are  our  relations 
to  the  body  social  to  be  considered.  The 
time  is  full  of  organizations  aimed  to  reform 
the  state  of  society ;  what  is  our  attitude 
toward  them  ?  —  indifference,  ignorance,  or 
sympathy?  Is  the  brotherhood  of  man  a 
phrase  to  which  we  give  an  intellectual  as- 
sent merely,  or  are  we  really  interested  in 
solving  the  problems  of  congested  cities,  and 
underpaid  and  overworked  fellowmen  ?  All 
of  these  things  make  that  subtle  and  intan- 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER    105 

gible  thing  known  as  character,  which  we 
so  unconsciously  transmit  to  our  pupils  and 
associates. 

We  need  also  to  take  note  of  our  intellec- 
tual equipment.  "  I  'm  in  the  fifth  grade 
now,  I  was  in  the  fourth  grade  last  year," 
the  child  will  tell  you  with  pride,  for  he 
keeps  a  record  of  his  growth  in  knowledge. 
In  every  well-organized  business  there  is 
maintained  a  reserve  fund,  which  is  added 
to  every  year,  to  provide  for  the  "obso- 
lescence and  inadequacy  of  equipment."  It 
would  seem  that  all  of  us  have  need  of  such 
a  reserve  fund  in  our  intellectual  capital  if 
we  are  to  continue  to  teach  effectively.  Our 
ideas  may  grow  old,  and  our  way  of  pre- 
senting truth  be  inadequate  to  the  needs 
and  opportunities  of  the  present  day;  for 
even  the  very  phraseology  of  religion  has 
changed.  There  should  be  an  accumulation 
of  new  capital  added  to  our  mental  assets 
every  year;  new  ideas  should  come  in  to 
displace  the  old  ones,  we  should  adopt  new 
methods  suited  to  new  needs.  Machinery 
is  discarded  in  factories  to-day,  not  because 


io6       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

it  has  broken  down  or  does  not  do  the  work, 
it  once  did,  but  because  a  new  improvement 
in  machinery  will  produce  greater  efBciency 
and  increase  the  output.  Shall  we  be  con- 
tent with  less  than  our  highest  efficiency  in 
this  task  ? 

The  child  knows  the  world  around  him ; 
what  do  we  know  of  our  world  ?  Let  us 
open  our  eyes  and  see ;  for  "  He  hath  made 
everything  beautiful  in  its  time:  also  he 
hath  set  the  world  in  their  heart."  (EccL 
3:11.)  Can  we  teach  the  child  convinc- 
ingly that  the  presence  of  God  fills  all  na- 
ture, if  chemistry,  biology,  botany,  geology, 
and  astronomy  are  merely  names  to  us? 
Why  teach  him  the  miracles  of  centuries 
ago,  and  not  also  open  his  eyes  to  the  daily 
miracles  around  him  ?  Is  the  growth  of  a 
giant  pine  from  a  tiny  seed  any  the  less  a 
marvel  because  the  process  is  familiar! 
Should  we  not  wonder  at  the  intelligence 
of  the  ant,  who  knows  the  process  of  ger- 
mination so  well  that  she  bites  off  the 
sprouting  point  before  storing  the  grains 
in  her  granaries  under  ground? 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER    107 

Open  the  child's  eyes  to  the  vastness  of 
the  universe;  show  him  those  points  of 
starry  light  which  form  ''the  ordered  system 
of  the  marching  orbs  [which]  he  makes  in 
viewless  majesty  of  sky " ;  those  gigantic 
worlds,  suspended  in  unthinkable  space, 
obedient  to  an  unwritten  law  laid  upon 
them  from  the  beginning. 

The  Bible  is  the  greatest  nature  book  in 
the  world.  Summer's  quartette  of  birds, 
bees,  butterflies,  and  blossoms  flit  through 
its  pages ;  the  peace  of  the  great  mountains 
is  there,  and  ''the  deep  that  coucheth  be- 
neath"; the  starry  heavens  bend  over  it, 
and  there  are  "the  precious  things  of  the 
everlasting  hills."  (Deut.  33: 13.)  And  he 
who  would  make  this  a  living  book  to  the 
child  must  know  the  world  and  bring  it  to 
him. 

"Isn't  this  a  beautiful  morning?"  re- 
marked a  lady  to  a  laboring-man  walking 
along  a  country  road.  He  answered,  "I 
have  n't  time  to  look  at  the  sky."  Can 
we  have  our  children  grow  up  with  such 
calloused  souls?   But  we  cannot  interpret 


io8       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

this  great  nature  book  of  God's  revelation, 
unless  we  are  of  those  whose  spirits  are  so 
sensitive  that  they  can 

**Fcel  the  warm  Orient  in  the  noontide  air. 
And    from    cloud-minarets    hear    the    sunset    call    to 
prayer." 

To  Archdeacon  Stuck,  toiling  among  the 
icy  wastes  of  Mount  Denahli,  the  remark- 
able deep  blue  of  the  Arctic  sky  seemed 
"  like  special  news  of  God." 

Sidney  Lanier,  looking  out  over  the 
marshes  of  Glynn,  watched  a  marsh  hen, 
and  another  aspect  of  God  in  nature  broke 
upon  his  inward  vision: — 

**  As  the  marsh  hen  secretly  builds  on  the  watery  sod, 
Behold  I  will  build  me  a  nest  on  the  greatness  of  God : 
I  will  fly  in  the  greatness  of  God  as  the  marsh  hen 

flies 
In  the  freedom  that  fills  all  the  space 'twixt  the  marsh 

and  the  skies: 
By  so  many  roots  as  the  marsh  grass  sends  in  the  sod, 
I    will   heartily  lay  me  a-hold  on  the  greatness  of 

God." 

We  are  not  all  poets,  not  all  alike  sensi- 
tive; nor  are  the  children  whom  we  teach 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER    109 

alike  in  this  respect;  but  we  must  cultivate 
this  spirit  in  ourselves,  and  educate  it  in 
them,  if  the  "  immanence  of  God ''  is  to  be 
a  comforting  fact  in  their  lives,  and  not 
merely  a  barren  statement.  Nature  speaks  to 
those  who  will  listen  to  her.  In  the  quiet  of 
the  woods  and  fields  the  air  may  palpitate 
with  the  felt  presence  of  God,  as  really  as  at 
the  most  solemn  moment  of  service  in  the 
cathedral. 

So  into  the  fields,  O  Lord,  we  come. 
The  fields  of  the  flower  and  trc.e  ; 
And  our  souls  draw  life  from  the  breath  of  the  flowers. 
And  our  hearts  are  cleansed  by  the  dewy  showers  ; 
J  For  by  flower,  and  leaf  and  the  insect's  hum. 
We  have  spoken,  O  Lord,  with  thee  ! 

There  is  a  third  and  most  important  field 
of  knowledge  in  which  we  must  know  our 
own  place.  We  should  seriously  ask  our- 
selves, "  What  do  I  know  of  God?  "  Some- 
times from  very  reverence  we  fear  to  inter- 
rogate ourselves  on  this  subject,  hindered 
also  by  a  vague  sense  of  the  impossibility 
of  knowing  the  unknowable,  of  trying  to 
comprehend  the  Infinite  God. 


no       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

Perhaps  we  content  ourselves  with  phrases 
which  have  become  so  traditional  that  they 
have  lost  the  sharp  vitality  which  would 
make  them  an  incisive  force  in  our  lives. 
Do  we  believe  in  a  phrase  ?  Or  is  our  creed 
the  dynamic  of  our  living  ?  It  is  not  the  lips 
that  teach,  but  the  life;  it  is  not  our  creed 
that  will  influence  the  child,  but  our  char- 
acter which  interprets  it  for  him.  And  so  it 
is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  ask  our- 
selves some  pointed  questions,  and  insist 
upon  answers. 

Do  I  know  God  as  the  All-Wise,  the  All- 
Powerful,  the  All-Loving? — know  Him 
not  only  as  the  just  and  awful  judge,  but  as 
the  loving  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
and  of  us? — know  Him  not  only  as  the 
King  of  Kings  and  of  the  universe,  but  as 
the  Divine  Disposer  of  the  events  of  my  own 
life?  Do  I  know  these  things  with  that 
"  audacious  certitude  of  faith  "  which  char- 
acterized Habakkuk,  so  that  I  am  willing  to 
posit  life  upon  it,  and  live  in  the  glorious 
and  comforting  certainty  that  the  great  God 
who  "  hath  made  the  earth  by  his  power " 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER     iii 

(Jer.  51:15),  is  my  shepherd  and  so  I  shall 
not  want?  This  is  the  faith  which  will 
carry  the  child  over  life's  hard  places;  is  it 
ours  to  impart  ? 

And  after  we  have  thus  found  ourselves, 
have  measured  our  own  stature  in  this  way, 
we  must  follow  the  law  of  growth  and  in- 
crease. This  will  require  deliberate  effort 
on  our  part  as  well  as  earnest  desire.  For 
growth  in  our  capacity  as  teachers  follows 
the  law  of  life,  and  depends  upon  food,  exer- 
cise, and  environment.  These  things  are  not 
left  to  chance  with  the  child  that  is  well 
nurtured.  We  are  our  own  guardians  in  this 
matter;  and  it  behooves  us  to  place  ourselves 
in  such  an  environment,  to  find  for  our  souls 
such  nourishment,  and  to  develop  our  soul 
qualities  by  such  exercise,  that  we  may  con- 
tinually increase  in  knowledge  of  ourselves, 
in  comprehension  of  our  world,  and  in  sensi- 
tiveness to  the  presence  of  God. 

There  is  still  a  question  which  we  must 
ask,  and  by  the  answer  to  this  we  can  de- 
termine whether  we  belong  to  those  teachers 
who  desire  to  grow,  and  so  turn  to  the  child 


112       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

for  helpful  suggestions.  "Why  must  I  go  to 
Sunday-School?"  says  the  rare  child  who  is 
unwilling  to  go.  Why  do  we  go  to  Sunday- 
School  to  teach  ?  is  a  question  which  we  may 
well  ask  ourselves. 

Perhaps  the  motive  that  brought  us  was 
merely  a  feeling  that  we  wanted  to  do  some 
form  of  church  work,  and  this  was  the  usual 
one  to  undertake ;  and  so  we  came  to  it  with- 
out feeling  that  urgent  and  special  call  which 
is  as  essential  to  successful  work  in  teaching 
as  in  preaching.  If  this  is  so,  we  need  to  pray 
with  double  earnestness, — 

**  Lord,  speak  to  me,  that  I  may  speak 
In  living  echoes  of  Thy  tone." 

But  if  we  really  have  been  called  to  this 
divine  work,  we  come  because  we  have  rea- 
lized so  much  what  the  knowledge  of  God 
means  that  we  want  to  help  the  children  to 
attain  the  same.  We  come  because  we  have 
learned  something  so  precious  that  we  must 
impart  it  to  others.  For  we  have  learned  that 
to  have  Jesus  Christ  at  the  center  of  our 
lives  is  a  well-spring  of  joy ;  that  to  follow 


THE  CHILDLIKE  TEACHER     113 

his  example  is  the  sure  road  to  happiness; 
and  that  a  vital  apprehension  of  the  love  of 
the  Father,  manifested  in  the  Son,  makes  life 
one  continuous  feast  of  thanksgiving,  a  liv- 
ing doxology. 

This,  then,  is  the  great  task  for  which  we 
would  prepare  ourselves.  And  to  that  end 
we  must  so  live  that  we  may  teach  the  child 
that  all  life  belongs  to  God;  that  the  one 
form  of  growth  that  never  reaches  comple- 
tion is  to  grow  "  in  grace,  and  in  the  know- 
ledge of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ" 
(2  Peter  3:  18);  that  all  the  activities  of  life 
may  find  their  inspiration  in  Him;  and  that 
in  his  teachings  are  to  be  found  the  solutions 
for  all  social  problems. 

We  must  show  the  child  also  that  since 
"in  Him  all  fullness  dwelleth,"  so  all  art  and 
history  and  nature  may  meet  in  Him.  We 
must,  in  short,  so  teach  the  child  that  he  shall 
"sum  up  all  things  in  Christ"  (Eph.  3:  10), 
for  this  it  is  to  be  a  Christian. 


IX 

THE  OLD  BIBLE  AND  THE   NEW  CHILD 

OF  all  the  books  that  have  come  down 
to  us  from  antiquity  the  most  remark- 
able is  that  Book  of  books,  commonly  known 
as  the  Bible.  Composite  in  its  character,  the 
work  of  many  men,  part  of  its  manuscripts 
are  among  the  earliest  extent,  while  others 
date  only  from  the  first  century  of  our  era. 

But  whether  selected  by  Jewish  elders  or 
Christian  Councils,  the  included  books  were 
placed  there  because  they  contained  unmis- 
takably the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
And  because  men  believed  it  to  contain  the 
messages  of  God  to  men,  they  have  guarded 
its  text  with  zealous  care. 

It  is  a  book  red  with  the  blood  of  those 
who  have  witnessed  to  its  truth  with  their 
lives.  The  roll  of  the  saints  is  long,  from 
those  faithful  Jews  who  loved  the  Law  and 
died  for  it,  to  persecuted  Wycliffe,  and  to 
Tyndale  burning  at  the  stake,  because  he 
dared  to  put  its  teachings  within  the  reach 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  115 

of  every  Englishman.  Even  in  our  own  day 
the  missionary  colporteurs  have  braved  death 
to  circulate  the  Bible.  Through  all  these  ages 
men  have  loved  the  book  because  they  were 
convinced  that  only  in  its  pages  was  to  be 
found  a  satisfaction  for  the  soul-hunger  of 
the  world. 

The  historian  Green  has  eloquently  told 
the  relation  of  the  English  Bible  to  English 
civilization,  and  how  it  has  come  to  pass 
that  English  literature  bears  such  unmistak- 
able traits  of  Jewish  ancestry.  For  these  great 
messages  came  to  us  embodied  in  splendid 
examples  of  the  story-teller's  art,  and  are  sung 
in  some  of  the  sublimest  poetry  ever  written; 
and  here,  and  here  only,  has  been  answered 
the  age-recurring  question,  "  Whence  came 
I,  whither  am  I  going?" 

But  we  Americans  may  add  another  chap- 
ter even  to  Green's  eloquence.  Amid  the 
desolation  of  the  pioneer  winters,  especially 
in  bleak  New  England,  no  library  opened 
then  its  hospitable  doors;  no  morning  paper 
appeared  as  if  by  magic  on  their  doorsteps, 
to  bring  them  the  news  of  the  world  for  break- 


ii6       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

fast-table  discussion;  and  so  men  were  thrown 
back  upon  the  Bible  for  literature  as  for  re- 
ligion. 

It  was  indeed  to  them  a  Book  of  books; 
for  here  they  found,  to  quote  Green,  "Le- 
gend and  annal,  war  song  and  psalm,  state- 
roll  and  biography,  the  mighty  voices  of 
prophets,  the  parables  of  evangelists,  stories 
of  mission  journeys,  of  perils  by  the  sea  and 
among  the  heathen,  philosophic  arguments, 
apocalyptic  visions."  Its  characters  peopled 
the  wilderness  for  them,  and  robbed  it  of  its 
awful  lonesomeness;  for  the  God  of  the  de- 
sert was  there.  And  the  tempest  was  shorn 
of  its  terrors  by  the  majestic  recital  of  the 
power  of  the  great  Jehovah,  who  rode  upon 
the  wings  of  the  storm,  and  stilled  the  raging 
of  the  sea;  for  was  not  "stormy  wind  fulfill- 
ing his  word"? 

As  they  read  the  great  stories  of  old,  of 
the  help  given  the  Chosen  People  in  their 
times  of  need,  they  drew  deep  draughts  of 
courage  from  the  recital,  and  took  to  them- 
selves those  promises  of  help.  They  modeled 
their  government  upon  that  early  theocracy; 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  117 

they  took  the  stern  and  serious  prophets  for 
their  exemplars;  and  named  their  children 
after  the  old  worthies  and  the  Christian  graces ; 
so  that  Prudence  and  Bethuel,  Ezra  and 
Eunice,  Grace  and  Temperance,  might  be 
found  in  the  same  family.  The  people  of  the 
Bible  were  so  real  to  them  that  they  were 
their  companions.  It  was  said  of  one  lady 
that  as  she  grew  older  "she  spent  less  time 
with  Elijah  under  the  juniper  tree,  and  with 
Jeremiah  in  the  pit.  She  rarely  marched  to 
battle  with  Joshua.  But  she  walked  often 
with  Moses  up  and  down  the  mountains  of 
the  wilderness,  she  mused  with  David  in  the 
valleys  and  pastures." ' 

Into  the  fabric  of  our  history  has  been 
woven  the  result  of  that  constant  association 
with  the  Bible;  and  no  future  historian  of 
these  United  States  can  adequately  judge  us 
or  our  forbears,  unless  he  recognizes  this  fact 
of  our  early  reverence  for,  and  familiarity 
with,  the  old  Bible. ' 

So  was  it  once  with  us.  The  Bible  was  the 
ark  of  every  household,  the  arbiter   in  all 

«   F.  B.  Squire,  The  Ballingtons. 


ii8       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

questions  of  right  and  wrong.  It  was  a  rev- 
erenced document,  whose  every  word  was 
deemed  inspired,  whose  every  statement  was 
undisputed  fact.  And  although  we  had  finally 
accepted  Galileo's  theory  of  the  universe,  and 
so  regarded  as  poetry  the  psalmist's  declar- 
I  ation  that  the  going  forth  of  the  sun  is  from 

one  end  of  the  heaven  to  the  other,  yet  we 
held  fast  with  reverent  tenacity  to  the  literal 
six  days  of  creation.  The  Book  of  Jonah 
was  regarded  as  an  historical  treatise,  and  we 
held  it  for  fact  that  at  Joshua's  command  the 
sun  and  moon  stood  still.  The  age  under- 
stood that  the  prophet's  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord"  indicated  a  message  which  had  been 
conveyed  to  him  in  a  voice  that  would  have 
been  audible  to  others,  had  they  been  pre- 
sent. We  knew  that  the  Bible  was  a  collec- 
tion of  books,  written  probably  at  various 
times;  but  we  still  held  it  to  be  inspired  in 
word  and  in  statement  of  fact. 

It  thus  became  to  Protestantism  the  most 
sacred  of  objects.  The  irrevocable  oath  was 
sworn  upon  it,  instead  of  upon  the  bones  of 
saints  or  pieces  of  the  Holy  Rood.  Its  utter- 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  119 

ances  were  sacrosanct,  and  one's  eternal  sal- 
vation was  imperiled  by  doubt  of  the  accu- 
racy of  its  scientific  or  historical  statements. 
To  many  it  was  an  oracle,  and  in  cases  of 
doubt  or  perplexity  the  verse  upon  which  the 
eye  alighted  at  a  chance  opening  of  the  book 
was  regarded  as  a  heaven-inspired  direction 
for  action.  The  book  itself  was  holy;  a  soldier 
whose  life  had  been  saved  because  a  Bible  in 
his  bosom  stopped  the  bullet,  was  looked 
upon  as  a  signal  instance  of  the  interposing 
of  Divine  Providence. 

It  was  "the  impregnable  rock  of  Holy 
Scripture";  all  doctrine  must  be  proved  by 
literal  texts,  even  though  taken  piecemeal 
from  their  contexts ;  for  back  of  every  word 
was  supposedly  a  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord." 

A  narrow  view  it  seems  now  to  us,  but 
a  deep  one  in  its  effect  upon  the  characters 
of  those  who  held  it.  For  here  was  an  object 
of  reverence  present  in  every  household ;  a 
continual  reminder  of  that  Higher  Power, 
and  man's  dependence  upon  it;  something 
to  reach  up  to ;  a  standing  refutation  of  that 
growing  democratic  principle,  that  all  men. 


I20       A  CHILD^S  RELIGION 

all  places,  all  things,  were  alike  equal.  It 
was  the  trusted  guide  of  life  and  conduct; 
the  unchangeable  in  a  world  of  change ;  the 
inerrant  in  a  world  of  ignorance  and  uncer- 
tainty. 

This  it  was  to  the  faithful,  and  more.  For 
although  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord"  terrified 
the  evildoers,  it  comforted  the  trusting  hearts; 
and  they  forgot  the  terrors  of  the  Law  in 
the  gentleness  of  the  Gospel. 

In  such  an  atmosphere  the  child  grew  up 
of  old.  He  was  accustomed  to  see  his  grand- 
mother sitting,  as  one  has  said,  with  her 
Bible  on  her  knee,  and  the  light  of  a  far- 
seeing  wonder  on  her  face. 

His  toys  included  a  Noah's  ark ;  and  his 
animal  stories  were  not  of  the  jungle,  but  of 
the  serpent  in  Eden;  of  the  ram  caught  in 
the  bushes,  which  took  Isaac's  place;  of 
Noah's  exploring  dove,  of  Balaam's  speak- 
ing ass ;  of  the  lion  that  Samson  slew  bare- 
handed ;  of  the  ravens  that  fed  EHjah ;  of  the 
bears  that  devoured  the  irreverent  children 
who  had  mocked  Elisha ;  of  the  "  little  ewe 
lamb  "  of  Nathan's  rebuking  parable ;  of  the 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  121 

fish  that  St  Peter  caught  with  money  in  its 
mouth  for  taxes ;  of  the  sparrows  sold  for  a 
farthing;  and  of  that  favored  animal  that 
carried  the  king  when  He  triumphantly  en- 
tered Jerusalem. 

In  his  garden  the  "  birds  of  the  air  '*  found 
nests  in  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  and  the  olives 
of  Gethsemane,  in  the  withered  fig  tree,  and 
the  mustard  tree  that  had  grown  great  from 
a  small  seed.  There  grew  also  the  "mint, 
and  the  anise,  and  the  cummin,"  the  lilies 
of  the  field  that  toiled  not,  and  the  rose  of 
Sharon;  the  weeping  willows  of  Babylon, 
and  that  tree  of  life  "which  bare  twelve 
crops  of  fruit,"  whose  leaves  were  "  for  the 
healing  of  the  nations." 

The  stories  of  Moses  and  Joseph  were  the 
familiar  tales  of  his  infancy  ;  and  the  pictur- 
esque story  of  the  Deliverance  from  Egypt 
and  the  forty  years'  wandering  he  followed 
as  to-day  one  reads  a  serial  story.  He  was 
thrilled  with  the  adventures  of  Gideon  and 
Samson,  the  daring  exploits  of  David  and 
Jonathan ;  the  magnificence  of  Solomon, 
and  the  splendid  bravery  of  Queen  Esther. 


122       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

The  child  prophet  Samuel,  the  child  king 
Joash,  and  the  child  Saviour,  all  had  their 
special  appeal  for  him. 

So  well  had  the  pious  chroniclers  done 
their  work  that  the  child  drew  from  their 
stories  the  lesson  they  tried  to  teach  in  their 
recital  of  history :  that  the  one  heinous  sin 
was  to  forget  to  serve  God,  a  sin  for  which 
no  political  magnificence  offered  any  pallia- 
tion: and  they  grasped  unconsciously  the 
stupendous  truth  that  God  is  the  Almighty 
Ruler  who  exacts  righteousness  from  nations 
as  well  as  from  individuals. 

The  religion  that  the  old  child  derived 
from  the  old  Bible  was  a  very  personal  one. 
To  him  all  nature  became,  in  Goethe's  phrase, 
"for  deity  a  living  robe  sublime."  To  him 
the  great  force  in  nature  was  not  concealed 
in  such  a  phrase  as  ''an  anthropomorphic 
God";  but  was  "my  God,  my  Lord,"  a 
personal  possession. 

But  forces  were  at  work  to  change  all 
this,  to  bring  it  to  pass  that  the  old  Bible 
should  become  the  new  Bible,  even  as  the 
old  child  was  becoming  the  new  child. 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  123 

Men  had  been  seeking  truth  in  the  Bible 
since  the  Reformation;  and  the  search  had 
emancipated  their  powers  and  widened  their 
horizon.  Starting  with  the  theory  that  every 
word  was  true  and  inspired,  yet  knowing 
the  fallibility  of  transcribers,  scholars  had 
sought  to  obtain  the  earliest  manuscripts  of 
the  Bible.  They  were  inspired  with  the  de- 
sire to  know  the  truth,  by  the  Bible  empha- 
sis upon  it;  and  the  scientific  spirit  abroad 
in  the  world  compelled  them  to  investigate 
the  very  text  of  the  sacred  books.  To  this 
task  they  brought  the  critical  acumen  gained 
in  many  lines  of  study.  They  fearlessly 
pushed  their  investigations,  and  drew  their 
conclusions  as  the  truth  seemed  to  be  shown 
to  them. 

They  found  that  the  Bible  was  not  only 
a  book  of  books,  but  that  many  of  these 
books  were  themselves  compilations,  edited 
under  one  name.  Then  they  put  the  parts 
together  in  what  they  believed  to  be  the 
true  historical  order,  irrespective  of  the  fact 
that  they  were  destroying  thus  age-old  tra- 
ditions of  authorship  and  of  the  sequence  of 


.124      A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

events.  They  were  seeking  the  truth ;  were 
they  not  also  seeking  the  Master  who  said, 
*' I  am  the  Truth"? 

Some  of  these  Higher  Critics  followed  the 
search  at  great  personal  cost.  For  earnest 
seekers  after  truth  were  branded  as  heretics; 
and  the  advocacy  of  the  results  of  these  stud- 
ies cost  many  a  man  his  position  as  teacher 
or  preacher. 

Nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at,  for  some 
of  our  old  opinions  were  rudely  shaken. 
No  longer  were  we  amazed  at  the  advanced 
piety  of  some  of  the  early  kings;  for  we 
found  that  the  piety  of  the  Exilic  period 
was  responsible  for  the  form  of  its  expres- 
sion. Some  things  that  we  had  thought  of 
as  history  were  denominated  poetry ;  and  the 
new  knowledge  altered  our  ideas  of  some  of 
the  historical  characters. 

Yet  the  gains  of  this  scholarly  criticism 
were  great. 

The  prophets  were  placed  approximately 
each  in  his  proper  historical  setting,  and 
with  a  known  background  the  universal  ap- 
peal of  their  prophecies  was  strengthened. 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  125 

The  placing  of  all  events  and  writings  in 
their  correct  historical  order  has  opened  our 
eyes  to  a  great  fact:  that  the  human  race 
grew  in  its  power  of  spiritual  receptivity, 
and  that  as  it  grew,  the  enlarged  revelation 
was  given  to  it.  We  find  here  the  authority 
for  saying  that  the  religious  development 
of  nations  and  of  individuals  is  a  growth; 
that  we  are  not  born  spiritually  perfected, 
and  that  no  one  generation  has  sounded  the 
depths  nor  reached  the  heights  possible  of 
attainment  by  the  spirit  of  man ;  and  that 
the  voice  of  prophecy  is  not  dumb,  but  is 
sounding  to-day  in  the  ears  that  are  open  to 
hear  it. 

Surely  this  is  a  great  gain.  There  is  hope  in 
such  a  view  of  the  Scriptures ;  there  is  a  hu- 
manness  that  makes  their  grandeur  and 
loftiness  more  approachable.  There  is  en- 
couragement to  grow,  to  strive,  to  seek  for 
the  new  truth.  For  the  truth  of  the  Bible 
and  its  eternal  message  are  not  limited  to 
any  set  phrase  nor  preconceived  notion  of 
its  authorship.  The  prophet  was  "  the  mouth 
of  the  Lord,"  and  he  cared  little  to  be  re- 


126       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

membered  personally ;  but  was  chiefly  con- 
cerned that  his  message  should  reach  the 
hearts  of  his  people. 

It  has  troubled  many  to  be  told  that  the 
Book  of  Deuteronomy  was  probably  not 
written  by  Moses,  but  was  a  book  contain- 
ing much  of  his  teaching,  although  written 
probably  in  the  reign  of  Manasseh.  It  has 
troubled  more  to  hear  of  a  second  Isaiah, 
"  Deutero-Isaiah,  or  the  "Great  Unknown," 
from  whose  pen  came,  during  the  Exile, 
some  of  the  sublimest  passages  of  that  won- 
derful Book  of  Isaiah.  The  message  was  the 
same,  no  matter  who  delivered  it;  the  moral 
effect  of  the  stories  was  the  same,  no  matter 
who  edited  the  old  manuscripts.  To  teach 
God  by  history,  to  praise  Him  in  song,  and 
to  proclaim  his  warnings  and  his  comfort- 
ings  —  these  were  the  ends  that  they  sought 
to  reach,  the  goal  of  their  ambition. 

We  must  count  among  the  gains  of  the 
critical  movement  the  separation  of  historic 
fact  from  the  later  accretions,  and  also  the 
shattering  of  the  belief  that  every  word  was 
inspired.  We  have  hence  realized  that  the 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  127 

truth  of  the  spiritual  message  is  not  impaired 
by  any  scientific  or  historical  inaccuracies  in 
the  form  which  clothes  it.  The  recognition 
of  this  fact  has  taken  from  infidelity  one  of 
its  favorite  arguments ;  for  the  scoffers  were 
wont  to  say,  "  If  this  is  the  inspired  word 
of  God,  He  does  n't  know  as  much  about ' 
the  laws  of  this  world  as  we  men  of  science 
do."  But  by  changing  the  emphasis  from 
matter  to  spirit,  we  learned  that  the  great 
eternal  truths  still  spoke  to  the  heart  of  man. 
What  did  it  matter  to  those  old  chroni- 
clers whether  a  king  reigned  exactly  forty 
years  or  not?  About  forty  years  was  close 
enough  for  them,  for  their  object  was  to  lay 
stress  upon  the  moral  lessons  taught  by  his- 
tory, not  upon  the  mere  facts  of  the  case,  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  these  were  necessary  to  clothe 
and  place  it.  A  philosophy  of  history  with 
Jehovah  as  the  central  cause  was  what  they 
were  trying  to  set  forth  for  their  people  — 
not  dates  and  dry  chronicles.  Were  the  Pro- 
verbs any  the  less  valuable  summaries  of  the 
wisdom  of  the  East  because  Solomon  did 
not  write  them  all?  Did  the  Psalms  cease  to 


128       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

be  the  vehicle  of  expression  for  every  emo- 
tion of  the  pious  heart  that  could  appropriate 
as  its  ownthat  "poetry  of  friendship  between 
God  and  man,"  simply  because  we  were 
fairly  certain  that  many  of  them  were  writ- 
ten long  after  "the  sweet  singer  of  Israel" 
had  ceased  his  earthly  harpings? 

And  although  to  our  enlightened  sense 
there  was  no  longer  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  " 
behind  every  word,  yet  we  were  more  firmly 
convinced  than  ever  before,  that  "No  pro- 
phecy ever  came  by  the  will  of  man,  but  men 
spake  from  God,  being  moved  by  the  Holy 
Spirit."  (2  Peter  i :  21.) 

As  a  result  of  this  certainty  of  belief  men 
are  seeking  to  popularize  the  study  of  the 
Bible.  We  live  in  a  day  of  many  versions. 
But  during  the  generation  that  has  elapsed 
since  the  Revised  Version  made  its  appear- 
ance, when  successive  versions  broke  down 
the  respect  for  textual  authority,  and  before 
the  constructive  results  of  the  studies  of  the 
critics  had  been  fully  digested,  there  was  a 
period  of  much  uncertainty,  and  men  ceased 
to  read  the  Bible  and  to  teach  it  to  their 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  129 

children  as  they  had  once  done.  "Shall  I 
teach  the  old  or  the  new  version?"  they 
asked,  bewildered;  and  found  it  easier  to 
teach  nothing.  As  a  consequence  there  has 
grown  up  a  generation  of  young  people  to 
whom  the  great  book,  especially  the  Old 
Testament,  is  more  unfamiliar  than  Homer; 
there  are  intelligent  boys  and  girls  of  fifteen 
who  do  not  know  who  Moses  was. 

So  dense  has  the  ignorance  become  that 
educators  have  finally  recognized  it  as  a  de- 
fect in  our  educational  system  and  have  set 
about  to  remedy  it.  The  most  prominent 
stories  of  the  Old  Testament  are  among  the 
requirements  for  college  entrance.  The  State 
of  Indiana  has  arranged  that  pupils  may 
study  the  Bible  outside  of  the  public  schools, 
as  they  wish;  but  must  take  examinations  in 
the  subject  at  the  high  school,  which  will 
count  one  half  a  credit  on  the  course  of  stud- 
ies. Other  States  are  adopting  measures  look- 
ing to  the  same  end;  for  since  art  and  liter- 
ature abound  with  references  and  allusions  to 
the  Bible,  a  knowledge  of  its  contents  is 
necessary  to  a  complete  education.  And  since 


I30      A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

the  stability  of  a  republic  depends  upon  the 
righteousness  and  integrity  of  its  citizens,  to 
teach  these  splendid  ethics  is  recognized  as 
an  obligation  of  citizenship. 

But  the  years  that  have  brought  such 
changes  in  the  old  Bible,  halve  changed  also 
the  child  whom  we  would  reach  with  its 
message.  Scientific  investigation  has  entered 
even  the  nursery,  and  the  child  has  been  ob- 
served and  experimented  upon  from  his  first 
day.  We  judge  his  intellectual  grasp  by  his 
prehensile  ability  at  the  ^ge  of  two  weeks; 
we  have  found  a  theory  for  his  choice  of 
words ;  and  we  write  papers  upon  his  first  pas- 
sion, whether  it  be  for  blue  bottles  or  cats. 

The  telephone  is  the  familiar  sound  of  his 
babyhood,  and  the  graphophone  has  sup- 
planted the  lullaby.  Pestalozzi,  Froebel,and 
Montessori  have  preached  the  doctrine  of 
child  development  by  education,  and  even 
his  games  are  contributory  to  this  end.  Small 
wonder  is  it  if  in  general  he  thinks  himself 
the  center  of  things.  Surrounded  by  marvel- 
ous conveniences,  he  wants  to  know,  and 
seeks  to  enjoy.  He  has  very  definite  ideas 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  131 

of  his  likes  and  dislikes;  "I  want,"   and  "I 
like,"  are  his  constant  phrases. 

No  new  thing  astonishes  him,  for  he  has 
already  grasped  the  marvel  of  aerial  flight, 
of  submarine  boats,  of  wireless  telephony, 
of  electric  and  color  photography.  The 
phonograph,  once  a  marvel,  is  his  toy.  Nor 
does  anything  long  hold  his  interest  Like 
the  Athenian  of  old  he  is  seeking  to  hear 
"some  new  thing."  He  has  a  readiness  to 
undertake  new  enterprises,  he  hails  the  new 
with  joy,  and  faces  the  unknown  with  in- 
trepidity. He  has  scant  reverence  for  any- 
thing, and  small  respect  for  a  thing  because 
of  age.  "What  does  such  a  custom  or  tra- 
dition mean  to-day?  "  is  his  question.  "  What 
bearing  has  that  teaching  on  my  life?"  is 
his  supreme  inquiry,  often  tersely  stated  as 
"What's  the  use?" 

He  does  not  recognize  obligations  easily, 
and  is  restive  under  them.  He  is  wiser  than 
the  ancients,  for  his  teachers  are  trained^ 
alert,  intelligent,  encouraging  questions,  and 
able  to  answer  them. 
/    But  he  does  not  know  the  Bible. 


132       A  CHILD^S  RELIGION 

The  child  of  to-day  learns  manners  from 
the  "Goops,"  and  has  his  imagination  stim- 
ulated by  Red,  Yellow,  and  Blue  Fairy 
Books.  He  knows  more  of  "  Buster  Brown" 
than  of  Joseph;  and  the  "Jungle  Stories" 
are  better  known  than  the  kings  of  Israel. 
A  small  boy  overhearing  a  conversation 
among  his  elders  caught  the  word  "  Jehosh- 
aphat,"  and  promptly  called  out,  "  I  know 
who  he  was."  "Who  was  he?"  asked  the 
proud  father.  "The  jumping  kangaroo,"  re- 
plied the  young  Kiplingite. 

The  old  child  had  a  Sabbath  which  was  a 
distinguishing  mark  of  our  American  life ; 
the  new  child  has  none.  The  quiet  orderli- 
ness that  comes  from  open  churches  and 
closed  shops  is  lacking  in  the  cities  and 
towns  that  he  knows.  Competition  is  keen 
in  every  branch  of  life  to-day ;  it  is  keenest 
in  its  demands  for  the  time  and  attention  of 
the  growing  child.  The  pleasure-gardens, 
the  "movies,"  the  trolley,  offer  attractions, 
within  the  reach  of  all,  which  did  not  exist 
for  his  brother  of  sixty  years  ago.  He  was 
good  on  Sunday  partly  because  there  were 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  133 

no  fascinating  avenues  open  for  him  on  that 
day  except  the  Sunday-School  with  its  mu- 
sic and  comradeship. 

But  to-day,  the  new  child  must  choose. 
The  slot  machine  swallows  his  Sunday- 
School  pennies ;  the  excursion  by  trolley  or 
automobile  takes  his  time  ;  and  the  funny 
page  of  the  Sunday  paper  has  taken  the 
place  of  the  Sunday-School  book.  He  lives 
on  a  highly  spiced  diet  of  reading  and  illus- 
tration ;  he  gets  his  information  from  head- 
lines, and  his  opinions  are  formed  by  car- 
toons. It  is  action,  not  thought,  that  attracts 
him,  and  "  nothing  doing  "  is  his  phrase  for 
a  very  dull  time. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  common 
these  characteristics  of  the  new  child  are; 
for  they  belong  equally  to  the  nursery  pet 
and  the  street  gamin.  Motion,  action,  the 
desire  for  novelty,  the  lack  of  reverence, 
the  willingness  to  accept  the  new  —  these 
characterize  almost  every  class  of  child  to- 
day. 

Sixty  years  ago  the  deep  poverty  of  this 
time  of  economic  contrasts  had  not  arisen. 


134      A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

The  great  horde  of  immigrants  had  just  be- 
gun to  arrive,  and  furnished  no  problem,  as 
they  were  welcomed  and  easily  assimilated. 
And  although  on  our  Western  frontier  there 
were  settlements  which  needed  the  Gospel, 
most  of  the  children  grew  up  in  more  fa- 
vored communities. 

To-day  there  is  another  variety  of  the 
American  child  with  whom  we  must  reckon 
and  for  whom  we  must  provide.  These  have 
not  been  born  among  the  hills  of  New  Eng- 
land, nor  among  the  palmettos  of  the  South; 
but  Europe  nurtured  them  and  sent  them  to 
us.  Many  of  their  parents  were  religiously 
brought  up,  but  their  habits  have  suffered 
by  the  change  to  a  new  land,  and  the  break- 
ing of  old  associations;  and  the  new  lan- 
guage, which  many  of  the  adults  never 
learn,  is  a  great  impediment. 

So  these  children  of  the  slums  grow  up 
with  no  teaching  because  of  ignorance;  and 
the  children  of  happy  households  get  none 
because  of  perplexity.  "What  must  I  be- 
lieve ?  "  one  of  them  wrote  to  a  paper  re- 
cently. "  Is  there  a  God  ?  My  mother  says 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD         135 

there  is;  my  teacher  at  school  says  there 
is  n't ;  and  my  father  says  he  does  n't  know." 

But  can  this  Bible  of  ours  supply  any 
need  of  the  bright,  intelligent  child  of  to- 
day ?  —  this  child  to  whom  all  things  seem 
possible,  and  to  whom  the  wireless  telegraph 
has  taught  faith  in  the  things  that  cannot  be 
seen? 

The  new  child  needs  the  old  Bible;  needs 
the  touch  upon  his  own  mental  powers  of 
its  sublime  literature;  needs  the  language 
of  its  poets  to  unlock  his  own  emotions  in 
the  presence  of  beauty  and  grandeur ;  needs 
its  prophets  to  stir  and  direct  his  devotion; 
needs  to  grasp  the  idea  of  "God  the  Al- 
mighty Ruler  "  to  find  his  own  relative  place 
in  the  universe;  needs  its  splendid  heroism 
to  inspire  his  own;  its  zealous  apostles  to 
stir  his  own  loyalty  to  the  noblest  of  causes. 
"  In  the  beginning,  God,"  is  a  majestically 
simple  statement  whose  truth  he  needs  to 
know. 

The  new  child  is  in  need  of  a  new  inter- 
pretation of  the  Gospel  which  shall  fit  him 
to  meet  the  problems  of  life  to-day.  The 


136      A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

times  demand  of  religion  an  economic  Gos- 
pel. The  old  benevolence  and  charity  and 
almsgiving,  mere  palliations  of  misery,  will 
no  longer  suffice  to  relieve  the  deep  misery  of 
poverty  and  the  soul  deadness  of  those  who 
have  become  mere  beasts  of  burden  in  our  in- 
dustrial system.  He  must  be  prepared  to  meet 
also  the  reckless  infidelity  of  our  time,  which 
finds  no  God  where  there  is  no  prosperity. 

The  children  whom  we  train  belong  to 
both  of  the  social  classes :  to  the  prosperous 
few  from  whom  Agur  prayed  to  be  delivered, 
"  lest  I  be  full  and  deny  thee,  and  say,  Who 
is  the  Lord?"  or  else  to  the  poverty-stricken 
many,  from  whom  also  he  sought  escape, 
"  lest  I  be  poor,  and  steal,  and  take  the  name 
of  my  God  in  vain."  (Proverbs  30:  9.)  The 
child  of  to-day  is  the  reformer  of  to-morrow, 
or  the  victim  of  its  conditions.  What  can 
we  do  for  him? 

Says  Professor  Royce :  "  There  is  in  the 
child  a  well-known  disposition  to  idealize 
heroes  and  adventures,  to  live  an  imaginary 
life,  to  have  ideal  comrades,  and  to  dream  of 
possible  great  enterprises."  And  he  adds:  "If 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD  137 

I  have  never  been  fascinated  by  my  heroes 
and  the  wonders  of  life,  it  is  hard  to  fasci- 
nate me  later  with  the  call  of  duty.  ...  It  is 
in  his  fantasies  then,  that  a  child  begins  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  ' 

Will  not  the  hero-tales  of  the  Bible  help 
him  to  heed  the  call  of  duty,  and  so  make 
him  a  better  citizen  ?  From  these  old  tales 
he  will  learn  a  love  of  country.  He  will  ab- 
sorb unconsciously  the  reverent  and  worship- 
ful spirit  of  the  Book;  and  surely  amid  the 
rush  of  to-day  he  needs  concrete  illustrations 
of  what  worship  means;  for  no  life  is  kept 
sane  without  worship. 

There  is  here  for  him  a  broad  and  compre- 
hensive philosophy  of  history,  and  direct 
teaching  of  the  value  of  the  individual  life, 
and  its  relation  to  history  as  a  whole.  He 
finds  here  that  Christian  Socialism  to  which 
thoughtful  minds  are  turning  as  the  solution 
of  our  problems.  For  Labor  and  Capital, 
united  at  the  point  of  contact,  then  separat- 
ing like  the  sides  of  a  triangle,  can  be  joined 
only  by  Christ's  teachings  put  into  practice 
by  both. 

»  Philosophy  of  Loyalty ,  p,  260. 


138       A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

A  settlement  worker  found  her  class  of 
one  hundred  small  boys  divided  by  racial 
animosities.  She  appealed  to  them  thus: 
"Aren't  you  all  my  children ? ''  "Yes'm," 
they  chorused.  "  Then  are  n't  you  brothers  ?  " 
she  asked;  and  the  squabbling  ceased,  and 
peace  settled  upon  the  divided  household. 
"Are  n't  you  brothers?"  the  Bible  is  saying 
to  its  readers;  and  it  takes  the  child  back  in 
spiritual  lineage  to  his  Father,  God;  so  that 
the  child  trained  in  the  Bible  feels  himself, 
as  one  of  them  put  it,  "Kin  to  God." 

An  age  which  is  trying  to  put  a  moral  in- 
terpretation upon  even  the  rhymes  of  Mother 
Goose,  and  to  read  a  spiritual  import  into 
everything,  can  surely  find  no  fitter  vehicle 
for  such  teaching  than  these  stories.  The 
supernatural  becomes  the  natural  to  a  child 
so  trained,  and  faith  is  easy  for  him;  and  it 
is  "the  things  which  are  not  seen"  which  are 
eternal. 

It  is  obvious  that  if  we  are  to  reach  the 
new  child  with  the  old  Bible,  we  must  give 
it  to  him  in  its  most  enlightened  form.  For 
the  Bible  has  an  appeal  for  the  new  child. 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD         139 

and  if  he  does  not  find  it,  the  fault  is  ours, 
not  his. 

He  needs  the  book  in  its  most  recent  form 
in  order  that  he  may  associate  it  more  easily 
with  his  own  life;  that  its  characters  may 
have  a  vital  interest  for  him;  for  the  child 
of  to-day  deals  with  realities.  The  child's 
readiness  to  accept  the  new,  and  his  very  ignor- 
ance of  the  older  form  of  the  Bible,  make  it 
easy  to  teach  him  the  new  Bible. 

The  chief  obstacle  to  bringing  the  old  Bible 
and  the  new  child  into  right  relations  lies  in 
the  fact  that  the  older  child  has  not  studied 
the  new  Bible  enough  to  appreciate  it  and 
present  it  to  him.  We  might  as  well  be  St. 
Simeon  Stylites  on  his  pillar  above  the  mar- 
ket-place, as  to  try  to  teach  the  modern  child 
if  we  dissociate  ourselves  from  the  current 
life,  the  current  thought  of  to-day.  For  the 
thought  generations  change  more  quickly 
among  children  than  among  adults;  and  the 
new  teaching  is  in  the  air,  and  has  tinged 
all  their  studies.  We  must  meet  the  atti- 
tude to  life  of  the  present-day  child  if  we  are 
to  teach  him. 


I40      A  CHILD'S  RELIGION 

This,  then,  is  the  duty  laid  upon  us;  to 
teach  the  new  Bible  to  the  new  child,  that 
we  may  give  him  the  right  historical  per- 
spective for  his  future ;  that  we  may  impress 
upon  him  that  the  Eternal  purpose  may  be 
worked  out  even  by  human  politics,  for  the 
Lord  "  maketh  even  the  wrath  of  man  to  serve 
him";  and  above  all  must  he  learn  that  we 
cannot  be  a  righteous  nation  unless  as  indi- 
viduals we  are  loyal  soldiers  in  the  service 
of  the  King.  For  the  joy  of  living  is  loving, 
and  the  joy  of  loving  is  serving.  Whom  shall 
these  children  serve  if  not  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ;  and  how  shall  they  serve  unless  they 
love  Him ;  and  how  shall  they  know  and  love, 
unless  we  teach  them? 

Scholarship  and  knowledge  may  be  re- 
quired to  teach  these  lessons;  but  it  must  be 
knowledge  born  of  experience  and  scholar- 
ship illumined  by  the  teaching  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  if  it  is  to  reach  and  help  the  children 
of  to-day. 

I  once  asked  a  distinguished  surgeon, 
"Are  you  ever  nervous  about  undertaking 
an  operation?"  He  answered,  "I  think  only 


BIBLE  AND  CHILD         141 

of  the  need  of  help,  and  forget  everything 
else." 

So  must  it  be  with  us.  Let  us  not  hold 
back  from  teaching  because  of  our  imperfec- 
tions, if  only  we  have  quickened  souls:  the 
need  is  so  great.  Rather  let  us  focus  our 
thought  upon  these  children,  in  whose  hands 
lie  the  to-morrows  of  history ;  these  who  are  to 
be  the  statesmen  who  shall  achieve,  and  the 
poets  who,  hearing  "the  call  of  the  flute  of 
the  Great  Beyond,"  shall  interpret  it  to  their 
time ;  from  these  shall  come  the  prophets  to 
whom  shall  be  given  the  fuller  revelation  of 
God,  if  by  our  efforts  they  have  been  fitted 
to  receive  it. 

The  little  child  is  sitting,  where  the  Mas- 
ter placed  him,  in  the  midst  of  us.  The  ages 
are  in  his  keeping;  his  training  is  in  ours. 


THE    END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .   S    .   A 


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5     ?S33 


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